


looking for love, but willing to fight

by paperdream



Series: daisy time travels and jon suffers au [3]
Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Asexual Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist, Canon Asexual Character, Captivity, Crying, Cuddling & Snuggling, Delirium, Despair, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Fabric rustles, Fever, Forehead Kisses, Gen, Happy Ending, Hurt/Comfort, Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist & Alice "Daisy" Tonner Are Best Friends, Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist Has ADHD, Kidnapping, Love Confessions, Movie Night, Non-Consensual Lotioning, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Rescue, Rescue Missions, Self-Hatred, Sickfic, Statement withdrawal, The Magnus Archives Season 3, Time Travel, Whump, actually p straight up realized jonmartin oops, pre jonmartin
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-23
Updated: 2020-12-29
Packaged: 2021-03-10 04:26:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 12
Words: 34,187
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27677356
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/paperdream/pseuds/paperdream
Summary: Jon and Daisy try to navigate building a friendship after the revelation that Jon's been afraid of Daisy the entire time.Last part of my "daisy time travels and jon suffers au"
Relationships: Elias Bouchard & Alice "Daisy" Tonner, Georgie Barker & Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist, Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist & Alice "Daisy" Tonner, Martin Blackwood & Alice "Daisy" Tonner, Martin Blackwood & Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist, Martin Blackwood/Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist
Series: daisy time travels and jon suffers au [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1992145
Comments: 193
Kudos: 434





	1. Daisy

**Author's Note:**

> Title from "We Should Be Friends" by Miranda Lambert, bc that's the vibe for this one babes!
> 
> Chapter count is tentative. Check me out on tumblr @inklingofadream- I take TMA prompts and ramble about my writing progress

Daisy didn’t really remember what excuses and admissions she had spilled out to Basira after the others left them in the tunnels. She didn’t really remember how she got out of the tunnels, or back to her flat, either. The first really clear moment of awareness, after spilling out all the most disgusting, possessive, selfish, hateful, and inconsiderate parts of herself to the people she wanted to think well of her more than anything in the world, was standing back at her flat, staring into Jon’s room, and realizing he’d already made the preparations to leave before she even knew there was a problem (the flat felt so empty alone alone she was alone again she lost them again they were _gone_ ).

She doubted it was Jon himself who had torn through the room like a very tidy whirlwind, leaving drawers open and clothes rifled through but nothing actually out of place, collecting a good stock of both professional and casual clothes and all his essential electronics, toiletries, and the half-full bottle of prescription painkillers left over from his hand. Jon had been too scared to come do it himself- she’d _made_ him too scared, that much was obvious in the way he’d reacted when she came into the Archives, his terror at being caught telling the others. The most obvious suspect was Martin, which. She wasn’t thrilled at the idea of having him in her living space unattended, but it could have been worse. And it wasn’t as though she had a leg to stand on there, since he was trying to help Jon _escape_ from her, when Jon had fully believed she’d become violent if she had any forewarning.

She didn’t kid herself into thinking she couldn’t have known. She had seen, in a hundred little ways, how off-kilter Jon still was around her. She’d reminded herself he wasn’t the Jon she knew, and then charged ahead as though nothing was different. She had no one to blame but herself; if she’d _actually_ paid attention to Jon’s feelings, or explained herself even a little, he might have let her come with him to find a new flat, with locks that stood a chance against the monsters on his tail. Might have agreed to go out to lunch and get to know her as a friend rather than a tormentor. She’d know where he was, maybe even still get to snort at his terrible, nervous jokes. Were they always like that, taken back almost before they were finished and bookended by awkward chuckles, or was he only scared to joke around her?

Her phone chimed, at some point, the alarm she’d set so she’d be on time to pick Jon up at the end of the work day, whenever she wasn’t out of town on a hunt. She didn’t move. She wouldn’t be doing that, any more. Whether or not Jonathan Sims made it to and from the Institute safely was up to his own self-preservation and whatever aid or hindrance Elias threw at him, and if she was very lucky she might be able to convince Basira to let her know if he ever failed to come in.

She briefly entertained the idea of following him anyway. He didn’t need to know she was there, she could just make sure he was safe and be gone. But no, he _would_ find out, one way or another, and all that would happen was he’d feel even less safe than he already did. Jon didn’t need the fear of Daisy following him distracting him from catching sight of the _actual_ threats to his life.

She turned in eventually, unaware if it was early or late. She didn’t truly rest, but the bed provided a change of scenery for her to marinate in guilt and self-loathing. She considered deleting Jon’s contact from her phone, removing the temptation to force her presence on him, but decided against it. She never answered unknown numbers, and she wanted Jon to be able to get in touch, if he was ever in trouble and she was his only option. She couldn’t live with herself, if he got hurt because she didn’t come when he called.

She fell asleep, or near enough, at some point. The dreams didn’t hold as much terror as they had, a lifetime ago when all Jon had been nothing but a suspect and recurring, inexplicable presence in her subconscious. She’d come out of the coffin alive- it’s mere presence in her dreams couldn’t come close to the press of real earth- and Jon was there, anchoring her against the Buried. Tonight, she jerked out of the dream with tears running down her cheeks for a reason totally removed from fear. Even if he never wanted to see her again, she realized, Jon would have to, every night (she couldn’t remove herself from the dreams had too much left to do could never convince Elias to actually hire her would always be there as a reminder to keep his terror fresh).

(The selfish part of her, the part that wanted to go find wherever he was staying instead and drag him back to the flat where he was safe and _hers,_ was viciously thrilled. Even if she couldn’t see him in person, she’d know he was alive and be able to spot any major injuries as long as he continued to show up in her dreams.)

She was pleasantly surprised, when it was finally light enough to get out of bed, to see that Basira had texted her. It wasn’t much, didn’t reveal how she felt about the previous day’s revelations or Daisy herself, but it was an offer to get lunch, in their usual place. She comforted herself that even if Basira wanted to cut off all contact, as well, she was apparently going to give Daisy the news in person. She’d get to see her at least one more time.

She spent the morning milling around the flat, barely eating without the need to make sure Jon did as well and trying desperately to ignore the remnants of his presence everywhere. Should she start boxing them up, so he could pick them up and take them wherever he was living now?

 _Finally,_ she was able to head out to meet Basira. Was this what her life was going to be from now on, periods of nervous nothing, waiting until the next time she could go on a hunt or see one of her people, and then plunged back into bored, edgy loneliness? She’d have to find… she didn’t know what, a hobby or support group or _something_ if it was, or she’d end up trading everything she was for the pulsing single-mindedness of the Hunt. Even if she struggled, sometimes, to remember the feelings of the Daisy who’d realized she didn’t know how much of herself was herself in the depths of the Buried, or the woman who’d been ready to waste away depriving herself of it, she was still aware enough to know that if she gave it her mind it would take her inhibitions as well. If she lost herself trying to avoid Jon and Basira, she’d like as not immediately go back to imprisoning and terrorizing them, without the soft, human part left to cushion their fear or her temper.

Basira was already waiting at their little cafe, her own food in front of her and Daisy’s usual order set at the seat opposite. Daisy slid into the place set for her, eyes down and trying very hard not to feel like a dog with its tail between its legs (take her back take her back _please_ Basira take her back).

“I’m sorry, Basira.” She wasn’t entirely sure what she was apologizing for, given the muddled nature of their conversation yesterday, and her own inability to articulate how badly she’d gone wrong, if she’d been willing this whole time to take her and Jon away and hide them somewhere, just to have them, and in denial about it. But she knew Basira deserved an apology a thousand times better than Daisy could provide.

“Don’t,” Basira said. Daisy drew her shoulders up to her ears, trying to keep the motion from being a flinch. Basira sighed. “We shouldn’t talk about it here. If it isn’t Elias’ business then it isn’t his business.” Daisy nodded, unnoticed while Basira fished around in her bag. “You know entrances to the tunnels other than the one in the Archives?”

“Yes?”

Basira handed her a sealed envelope. “I wrote this down there. If you read it there and destroy it when you’ve finished, he’ll never know what it’s about.”

Daisy nodded. It was a good solution, if a bit unsubtle. She supposed after yesterday there was no way to keep Elias from realizing they were keeping secrets, though. She set the letter in her pocket like a fragile, treasured thing. If it was Basira saying she wanted nothing to do with her, she realized with a pang, she wouldn’t even be able to keep it as a memento.

Basira smoothed her scarf with her hands. “Right. How’s your day been?”

“...Fine.” Was she really going to have lunch with her as though nothing had changed (could she be that lucky)?

Basira nodded decisively. “Martin’s worse than he’s ever been, now that Jon’s staying with him. He’s going to drown the poor man in tea. And Melanie decided keeping Elias out of our heads is her personal duty, so she’s been emailing us all articles about weird meditation techniques and playing her music as loud as she can without the offices above the Archives complaining.”

Daisy let Basira steer the conversation through mundane (for them) topics, grateful for every crumb of information on her and Jon she could collect, with the letter burning a hole in her pocket.

-

_Daisy,_

_I really wish you’d told me about the time travel thing before things got to this point, but I understand why you didn’t. You had your reasons, and they were good, so I’m not going to let myself feel betrayed by it. You’re still my partner and my best friend, and I don’t want this to change that._

_Martin was worried I’d be as uncomfortable as Jon is, but I told him he was being ridiculous and to mind his own business, so anything you think the Archives need to know will go through me. Everyone else asked me to ask you not to come down there unless it’s an emergency, until everyone figures out how to feel about everything. If you want to meet up when you have to come in to talk to Elias, or to hang out while I’m at work, just text me and I’ll come upstairs. I assume you know more about the Unknowing than we do, if you’re from the future. Anything you can tell us would be much appreciated. We’d especially like to know where it’s happening and how you stopped it- I assume you stopped it- in your future. And anything you can tell us about what Elias is planning._

_You’re not a monster, Daisy, you could_ never _be a monster, but some of the things you said yesterday… they weren’t good. I think you know that. I don’t hold any of it against you, and it sounds like you more than earned some weird coping mechanisms and bad ideas, with whatever you went through in_ _the_ _future, but it isn’t healthy. You’re safe now, we’re all safe and we’re going to make sure we stay that way, and you deserve to be more than just safe. I_ _don’t know what exactly you should do-_ _what you_ can _do-_ _but I think you should try to get some kind of help, Daisy. Even if_ _you can’t tell anyone the whole story, there’s got to be something_ _you can look into to help you deal with… everything. It’s too much to carry alone, and I don’t know how to help._

_I’m assuming you know your way into the tunnels through an entrance besides the one in the Archives, so you can read this. I don’t like writing things down, it never goes as well as when I just say them, but I don’t think I could say some of this for the first time face to face. And just in case you don’t know another way into the tunnels, I wanted an excuse to be normal with you sooner than whenever you can climb down there to read this or talk with me without anyone else in the Archives to object._

_We’re going to get through this together, Daisy. We’ll be alright._

_~~Love~~ Sincerely,_

_Basira_


	2. Jon

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> To those of you saying to yourselves 'there's no way martin can afford a 2 room flat' consider: the plot doesn't work as well if jon's staying with georgie or in document storage, and he's not emotionally equipped to handle a 'there's only one bed' situation right now, even if martin would take a couch. we'll just say martin finally caught a break and found an insanely cheap flat somewhere (:
> 
> Also I know nothing abt Hungarian food but the buzzfeed listicle of dishes I read seemed to feature a lot of sour cream? ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯

Jon had meant to hole up on the cot in Document Storage until he was able to find a new place, but somehow found himself agreeing to come stay at Martin’s new flat- apparently when he’d finally moved out of the Archives he’d purposely found one with a spare room just in case something happened and someone else found themselves unexpectedly homeless, which was just so… _Martin._ He ended up sitting on the bed and staring into space, trying to process everything that had just happened, and luxuriating in being able to relax and stop looking over his shoulder for danger every second for the first time since… Leitner, at least. Even knowing Martin had been attacked in his flat before, something about the combination of a clearly lived-in home and Martin’s own steady reliability made it feel inviolable.

He didn’t realize that the room had a lock, and that he’d turned it behind him automatically, until the knob rattled. It was immediately followed by Martin knocking lightly. “You all right, Jon?”

He scrambled to his feet, tripping over himself to unlock the door and open it. “Sorry, yes. I didn’t- sorry about the door-”

“It’s fine, I should have knocked to begin with, I’m the one who should be sorry!”

“-I guess I locked it without thinking. Habit, you know.”

Martin looked at him as though he was trying to divine all the world’s secrets. “...from Daisy’s?”

Jon nodded. “I think… knowing what I do now, I think she pointed it out trying to make me feel better,” he chuckled awkwardly, trying to diffuse the tension with an awkward joke,“I thought she was, I don’t know, making fun of me, and I never thought it would actually keep her out, but still. Habit.”

Martin didn’t respond to the flailing attempt at humor. His face twisted with pity- which Jon should have anticipated, what was he thinking trying to make a joke out of something as awful as that- and, unexpectedly, anger. Jon cleared his throat, pulling on a more professional air. “Anyway. Did you need something?”

Martin nodded, his face clearing. “I was just about to order some takeout for dinner, and wanted to know if you wanted to give input.” His hands twisted. “You don’t have to if you don’t want to! But if you do.”

Jon half-remembered telling Martin Daisy made him eat, somewhere in his list of grievances. It was sweet, he thought, that Martin was trying to avoid upsetting him over it, even if he wasn’t pleased with what that said about him (felt the implication that she was right to do it, that if he couldn’t even manage three meals a day like an adult maybe he did need to be taken care of like a child), now that he wasn’t in the grips of a panic attack. “That sounds lovely, Martin.”

-

Over the next few days, Jon didn’t catch so much as a glimpse of Daisy. She was barely even mentioned. He felt dizzy, awash in heady relief, and also a bit at loose ends. Basira had told him Daisy had agreed to stay away and not contact him, though she’d been quite insistent that if _Jon_ ever wanted to get in contact she would answer.

She had been such a pervasive presence for months, delivering him to work or her flat and  eating two meals a day  with his every bite under scrutiny and pulling him out of his room to watch a movie or listen to  _The Archers_ in their free time, and now all the hours that had been filled with doing what Daisy told him, doing things with Daisy, worrying about what Daisy was going to do with him, were empty. Some of them were filled with preparations for the Unknowing, and searching for a new flat (which made him sorely tempted to move out to the middle of nowhere and never talk to a letting agent again), but not all of them.

He was offered a partial solution to this blank expanse the first day without Daisy, when, the moment his lunchbreak was supposed to begin (Martin would most likely show up eventually to remind him to eat, but otherwise he intended to work through) his phone began ringing. Jon ignored it, focused on his work and assuming it was a telemarketer. When it rang out, it started again almost immediately. A persistent telemarketer.

It wasn’t until the fourth call that he snatched the phone up, ready to snap at whatever call center was on the other side, only to immediately dissipate the anger into a vague guilty feeling, when he saw the calls were coming from Georgie.

“Hello?” She could probably hear how sheepish he felt.

“Finally! _Melanie_ has informed me, because _apparently_ you are too _busy_ and _important_ to update your _very worried_ friend, that you had reasons besides your job to run out on me and cut off contact like you did. And that those reasons are no longer relevant.”

He grimaced at the bite to her words. “That’s... correct. I’m sorry Georgie. I really did think… I thought I needed to keep you safe.”

“And I didn’t get a say in this?”

“I didn’t think I could explain. Not!” he cut off her interruption before it could manifest, “because it was complicated, or weird, or anything like that. I thought the act of telling you would be dangerous.”

Georgie huffed. “Right. Can you explain _now_?”

“ I’d rather not do it on the phone?” He hated phone calls, and he knew Georgie knew  as much. She’d probably called instead of texted as petty revenge for leaving her hanging as  abruptly and ominously as he had. And so he couldn’t forget- or “forget”- to respond, like he might with a text message. “Although the point about my job and all the… things that come with it being dangerous still stands.”

“And I can decide whether or not to take that risk on my own. My place, as soon as you’re off work.” Her tone did not provide room for argument, but it softened as she added, “You know I was so worried I had Melanie texting me every day she saw you to let me know you were still alive?”

He winced. “I’m sorry.”

“Make it up to me by showing up.”

“Alright. Goodbye, Georgie.”

-

Someday, Jon was going to stop showing up to hover nervously on Georgie’s doorstep. Maybe he’d even have a doorstep of his own for _her_ to stand at. Big dreams. But today he had an amount of anxiety roughly comparable to what he’d felt asking her to shelter him as a fugitive and an armful of Hungarian food to serve as a peace offering.

Georgie’s expression when she opened the door was more exasperated and wry, especially after seeing the takeout, than angry, which he tentatively took as a good sign. Better was when she plopped the Admiral into his arms and wrapped him in a hug the moment he’d set the food on the table. “The Hungarian is nice, but I’m still looking for my explanation.” He tried not to wince as she snapped the lid off the little takeout container of sour cream with aggressive verve.

“Right.” Jon took a deep breath, trying to figure out where to start. “Would you… I don’t know how much Melanie told you, and I can’t think of where to start. Would you mind asking some questions? More specific that ‘what happened?’ And I can go from there.” He kept his eyes fixed on The Admiral, on his fingers scritching fur into little peaks and then smoothing it down again.

“Jon.” His eyes darted up, meeting Georgie’s. She was frowning. “I’m not going to bite your head off. At least until after dinner,” she accompanied the joke with a weak smile, which Jon didn’t mirror. “Melanie didn’t say much, said it was your business, but she said enough that I can figure out you mostly weren’t acting out of malice or stupidity.”

Jon nodded. “That- that’s good. I didn’t mean to hurt you, or worry you. I never wanted that.”

She slid his plate full of takeout over to him and he released The Admiral to go curl up in the fading sun that came through the window. Georgie dug in with gusto. “What happened to your hand? I noticed the bandages are off.”

Jon took a bite of food before answering, knowing that as sensible and unavoidable as it had all seemed at the time, there wasn’t any way to recount his encounter with Jude Perry in which he came off well. “I shook hands with a woman made of burning wax.”

Georgie took a deep breath in through her nose. “Is that something I need to be concerned about? Wax women?”

“No. At least not- not on a personal level. I don’t think Jude has any further interest in me, and there’s no reason she’d want to track you down.”

“So the wax woman wasn’t the reason you went off the grid.”

“No, that was,” he took another bite of food, trying to get the lump in his throat under control, “that was Daisy.”

“The cop.”

“Yes. Both times, showing up here and leaving. She… had a change of heart. But it didn’t happen until she was halfway through making me dig my own grave. So you can understand why I was concerned that if I told you anything more about her there might be… consequences.”

Georgie set her fork down on the table. “Jon.”

“Yes?”

“Did you move in with someone who tried to murder you? And describe her to me as, quote, ‘a friend’?” He felt like he shrunk with every word Georgie spoke, all carefully stripped of tone or judgment but feeling accusatory all the same.

“It was more complicated than that. I didn’t… I think she genuinely wanted to help. I don’t think she wanted to hurt me.” _Anymore_ , he added silently to himself.

“Aside from the digging your own grave thing.”

“Yes. I do not think that, at any point _after_ the grave thing, Daisy wanted to hurt me.” He didn’t quite believe the words, yet, but it took a bit of the edge off the anxiety he’d carried for so long, saying it aloud. “She seemed... legitimately devastated when she found out I was frightened of her.”

Georgie picked her fork back up, stirring her food around a bit. “Jon, are you safe? Do you need somewhere to stay again?”

He shook his head. “No, I’m staying with another friend.” He chanced a glance up and noticed her incredulous expression, and his mind caught up with his mouth. “Not like that! Martin, my assistant, I think I mentioned him, had a spare room. And it seemed like a better option, given he’s just as involved in this mess as I am. And I don’t think Daisy knows… well. I know Daisy knows where _you_ live.” His shoulders drew up. “I’m sorry.”

She took a deep breath, closing her eyes. “Do I need to worry about Maniac Cop showing up? Or the stalker who kept sending you statements?”

“No. No, I don’t think so. You… might want to keep an eye out for mannequins? Or anyone from the Circus. But I don’t think they’d come here, now that I’ve moved out.”

“ Freaky mannequin circus! Great! ” She ran a hand through her hair, voice falsely bright.

Jon nodded. “That was why Daisy wanted me to move in with her. She has… an intimidating number of locks on her flat. And even if someone did get inside, there’s Daisy. But I didn’t know that was why, I thought,” he gulped, “I don’t know quite what I thought she wanted with me. I wasn’t sure. She didn’t want me to leave.”  
“So she intimidated you into being her roommate, and you didn’t tell me because you were scared of her?” Georgie’s eyes were still sharp, analyzing the evidence before her, but they were soft now, too. Sympathetic.

“I mean,” he chuckled awkwardly, “I don’t know that I’d say she intimidated me? She didn’t, didn’t ask and crack her knuckles threateningly to make sure I made the right choice. She just kind of moved me in. Literally, the police took a lot of my things into evidence, so within twelve hours of taking me there her flat was full of boxes of my possessions. She decided I would live there, and so I did.” He swallowed, trying not to get choked at the memory.

“The same way she _decided_ to make you dig your own grave?”

“Georgie…”

“What!” she flailed an arm, “Do you want me to let that _very relevant detail_ go?”

Jon shrugged. “I mean. It doesn’t feel very relevant any more? It was proof of concept of the idea she could and would hurt me, but it was almost three months ago.”

Georgie’s face fell. “What exactly happened between now and then that it doesn’t feel relevant, Jon? I don’t think that’s the kind of thing you just… get over!”

He shifted in his seat. “I… nothing, really. It’s silly, you’ll think I’m complaining about nothing. She just… decided we were friends. And invited me to movie nights and cooked for me and held me while I cried. She was _nice_. She just never _told_ me about the friends part. And I misunderstood things and thought if I complained to anyone at work they’d tell her, and if I told you… she says she didn’t mean it that way, but I thought she threatened you.” His voice got quieter and quieter and he went on, combined anxiety about what he was saying and the increased constriction in his throat. “You haven’t met her, but Daisy, she’s tall, and strong, and she can pick me up like a parcel if she wants. And she kept _doing_ it.” His eyes pricked, and he hated it, hated that in the past few months he could never seem to control himself enough to stop crying all the time.

Georgie sighed gustily. “Jon…”

He couldn’t seem to stop talking, now that he’d started. He gasped in a breath. “She made me feel like a prisoner, or a, a pet. Like she hunted me down and catching me meant she got to  _possess_ me.  I don’t-” his gasps were starting to sound like ghostly wails more than proper breaths, “I think coming to give your key back might have been the only time I was somewhere besides work or her flat without Daisy there the whole time I was living with her. I wasn’t even alone in  _hospital_ , she said she was my  _sister_ ,” he wrapped his arms around himself, fingers digging into the meat of his upper arms. “And it was all fine! She just wanted me to be safe! She went through something  _terrible_ , and she just wanted to spend time with her  _friends_ . It was all my fault! I just misunderstood!” He swiped an arm across his face, leaving tearstains streaked across his sleeve.

“Hey, hey,” Georgie said, in the soft voice of someone trying to coax an animal, “You’re alright. You’re safe here.” She stood up and her shadow fell over him. “Can I give you a hug?” 

His lips trembled and his throat made an involuntary, wobbly-sounding noise, so Jon just nodded.

Georgie kept that same soothing tone,  setting a hand lightly on his shoulder . “Okay. Do you want to move over to the couch?”

He shambled there wordlessly and collapsed on the cushions, staying limp as Georgie joined him and gathered him into her arms. He pulled his legs up so he was curled almost entirely in her lap and let her rub a hand over his back, making shushing noises.

“You know none of what you just said is true, right Jon?” His stomach sunk and he whimpered, but Georgie cut off that train of thought before it could go any further, “I’m not saying I don’t believe you! I’m saying that none of what happened was your fault. Just because you might have felt differently if you had all the facts doesn’t mean you were wrong for feeling the way you did, and it wasn’t your fault you didn’t have that information. Even if something bad happened to her first, that doesn’t give her the right to make you feel like that!”  He made a miserable, doubtful noise into her chest. “Her intentions don’t matter, Jon. Not if they resulted in this. You’re allowed to be angry and resentful.”

He let her hold him for a long moment, eyes lidded. Eventually, he whispered, “I’ve started to miss her, some of the time.”

The rhythm of Georgie’s hand against his back stuttered for a moment, but she gave no other sign that he’d said anything alarming. “Can you tell me what it is you miss?”

He sighed. “It was just… nice. It  _was_ , sometimes. Hanging out and doing normal things. And even if I was scared of her, I didn’t have to be scared of anything  _else._ I think… I think she’s right, that we could be friends. Under the right circumstances.” He laughed bitterly, “And it’s not as though I have a line out the door for that!” Maybe he should take what he was given and be grateful for it.

She hummed into his hair. “Wanna stay the night? Watch a movie, let The Admiral have his favorite mattress back?”

He sat up and wiped his eyes. “That would- I- I’m sorry, Georgie. I shouldn’t have dumped all that on you. You didn’t ask for it, I-”

“Jon,” she interrupted firmly, “If I needed to tap out, I would. Trust me to know myself that well, instead of deciding for me that you’re an imposition and don’t deserve comfort.” 

He shut his mouth with a click. “That would- I’d like to stay, then.” He patted his pockets, “Did you see where I left my phone? I should text Martin and tell him I haven’t been kidnapped, or anything.”

“So  _Martin_ ,” Georgie said, voice thick with something he couldn’t identify.

“Yes? I told you, I’ve been staying with him.”

“This is the Martin you talked about all the time when you were staying with me?”

“I… suppose? I don’t think I talk about him that much. He’s my coworker, I see him every day.”

“Mm-hm,” she raised her eyebrows. “And that’s all?”

“Yes? If you’re implying something I’d appreciate it if you’d just come out and say it.”  Because he definitely wasn’t catching the implication beyond its probably presence.

She laughed and tossed a throw pillow at his head. “Don’t worry about it!”

-

He turned what he’d admitted to Georgie over in his head, over the next few days. He knew she’d invited him to stay the night because of what he’d expressed about missing normal things (and maybe because she wanted to rekindle their friendship properly) but he didn’t think that was all. Thinking back on the moments he’d spent with Daisy, when he’d been able to forget the fear and anxiety, they had been nice. Not in the way spending time with Georgie and The Admiral was nice, or being with Martin was nice, or even the way going out for drinks before everything went wrong had been nice. Nice in its own way. In a Daisy way.

Maybe thinking that, and missing those times, was a sign of just how ruined he was. Maybe the fear and paranoia and the Eye had eaten away at his mind until he didn’t know a good thing from a bad one. He thought his morals were intact, but this wasn’t an issue of morality. Maybe he just had Stockholm syndrome. Maybe Daisy had brainwashed him somehow. He had a ridiculous mental image of Daisy setting him on her couch, shining a lamp in his face and swinging a pocket watch.

He thought mostly he pitied her. As much as Georgie and Martin and even, occasionally, Melanie  and Tim  reassured him he was the one deserving of sympathy in this situation, he couldn’t stop thinking about how her face had fallen, realizing he was scared of her. He didn’t think she would have been able to face that surprise and hurt. Not on the notice she had. And he was  _sure_ she knew more about what they’d all gotten into than she was letting on, especially now. And his only other lead on the Unknowing was trying to follow Gertrude’s globetrotting. Daisy seemed like a much safer and more accessible option.

Daisy knew things. He thought she was genuine in her desire for a nonviolent friendship. He thought he missed her. Added together, by the end of three straight weeks of not catching so much as a whisper of a glimpse of her, it seemed like enough reason to try reaching out. Especially if they met somewhere public, not far from the Institute, with the others all knowing where they were. 

Martin and Georgie weren’t enthusiastic about the idea, but once Jon laid out his reasoning,  and assured them that the personal aspect wasn’t motivated by pure loneliness or anything else they could fix,  they also knew they were unlikely to be able to talk him out of it. “I guess I’d rather someone responsible know what you’re doing that you go off on your own,” Georgie had eventually conceded. Jon had wrinkled his nose and accused her of treating him like an adolescent experimenting with alcohol and drugs; Georgie had assured him that the adolescent had much more common sense.

So he had a lunch date. Safe, public, less than a block from the Institute. With Daisy. It would be fine.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> catch me on tumblr @inklingofadream for prompts and writing updates!


	3. Daisy

Her heart leapt into her throat, when she received the message from Jon, carefully and professionally worded, asking if she might be available for lunch. Basira had mentioned there’d been talk of such a thing around the Archive (or possibly just in Jon’s office; Basira was an incorrigible eavesdropper; it was part of what Daisy loved about her) but she hadn’t allowed herself to get her hopes up. She checked three times that it was genuine, that it was worded like Jon wrote it and actually from his number, before sending back her own carefully-not-overeager reply.  Moments after sending it, she got another message notification, this one from Martin detailing the lengths he was willing to go to to get revenge if she hurt Jon again. She had forgotten how vicious he could be when he wanted.

She figured arriving early and saving a table was a better option than arriving early and watching the cafe from across the street so she could arrive at approximately the same moment Jon did, and consequently w as halfway through her meal by the time he did arrive, perfectly punctual. His limbs flailed slightly, between backing up and darting forward, when he spotted her. “Am I late?”

“No!” she said, before he could start reviewing his messages or checking the time. “I’m just early.” She wanted to tell him to go order and then they could talk, but apparently making sure he ate had been on the list of things Jon found upsetting, so she didn’t,  leaving a long silence between them before Jon shook himself.

“Right. I’ll be right back.”

Daisy took advantage of his absence to take some deep breaths and remind herself of how she’d promised herself this meeting would go. She wasn’t going to touch Jon, or say anything overly familiar, or let herself show any indication that she wanted those things, or that she might be angry or upset. This was a meeting between colleagues, and unless Jon indicated otherwise that was all it was. 

Jon slid into the seat across from her, tucking his feet under his chair so there was no chance of their legs touching. “I’m sure you’re wondering why I called you here.”

She stifled a laugh at the formality. She had to take this seriously. “Is it alright if I apologize, before we get into it?”

“Um.” Jon went stiff, and she was ready to take it back. “I suppose?”

She glanced down, gathering her thoughts. She didn’t realize how long it had been until Jon made an uncomfortable little noise in his throat, drawing her focus back. Her perception of time hadn’t been quite right since the coffin, and the Change had only made things worse. “Sorry, just… trying to get my words together.” She knew she should have written it out ahead of time, she’d had weeks and weeks without seeing Jon to prepare.

“I… I could Ask, if you like? If you’re having trouble finding the words.”

She shook her head. “No, I need to do it myself. I’m doing it because I’m genuinely, sincerely sorry, and I should give you the apology you deserve without you having to force it out of me.” She swallowed.  Now or never. “I’m sorry that I didn’t explain myself, and that I ignored  anything that might have told me you were uncomfortable. I’m sorry for doing whatever I decided was best without asking what you wanted. I’m sorry for putting you on the spot and making you go along with my lie when we got your hand treated.  And  I’m sorry for making you feel like a thing instead of a person.” She spent most of her speech staring at a point around Jon’s shoulder, unsure where to find a median between respecting Jon’s aversion to eye contact and sincerity, but she looked him in the eyes now. “And I’m so, so sorry for everything around the murder investigation. For driving you out of your home, and hurting you, and putting you in the boot, and making you feel like I killed Mike Crew because of what you told me. I think I would have done  that whatever you said; it wasn’t anyone’s fault but mine. And before that I manipulated and intimidated you, all because I decided you were guilty based on nothing but a gut feeling. Even if I’d been right, investigation is no excuse for treating you like that. For treating… anyone like that.” She still didn’t quite believe the last bit,  but the idea that suspects, that prey, deserved whatever she dished out fed the Hunt, and so that was probably enough to go on in the absence of  real  moral conviction. And it felt important for Jon to know that she regretted hurting him because it was wrong,  generally,  and not just because she liked him.

“That’s… a lot, I don’t really… know what to say.” Jon twisted his fingers together.

“You don’t have to say anything. You don’t have to accept it. I just needed you to know.” She winced internally at how the last sounded, but it was too late to think of a better wording now. “What was it you actually wanted to talk about?”

Jon ducked his head and pulled his shoulders up. “Well now it seems silly. I just wanted… I though you might know more about the Entities. And what we’re up against. And I’d appreciate it if you’d tell me.”

She huffed a short laugh. “That’s not silly, it’s incredibly relevant.  Course I’ll tell you.” She glanced over his head, then over her shoulder. She’d chosen the seat facing the entrance, but she was sure the cafe had some kind of back door, and better safe than sorry. “Just warn me if you see Elias over my shoulder sneaking up to murder me.”

Jon went a bit pale at the thought, and she suddenly remembered that he hadn’t gone to America or read Gerard Keay’s page, and so the last time someone had offered him knowledge like this  _was_ when Elias had murdered them for it. She cleared her throat and grabbed a paper napkin to start scribbling out the list of Smirke’s fourteen, with squiggly lines between the ones she personally felt bled into each other the most. “Right, so…”

-

By the time she was finishing her impromptu lecture (and who would have thought she’d ever be saying that? This was what she got for befriending nerds) and scattering  in whatever  other bits of information she thought Jon had learned on his trip last time she lived this, like the dependence on statements, Jon was getting jittery with the excitement of having his questions answered, nervousness forgotten. Daisy tried to suppress  a fond smile.

When Jon started to wind down a rambling connection he’d made involving at least three statements she’d never heard and two more she had, he glanced up at her and dropped his hands to his lap, ceasing their frenetic motion. “Thank you,” he’d been talking for so long he sounded a bit winded, cheeks flushed with excitement. “Thank you, this is more than we’ve had… maybe ever,  _t_ _hank you_ .”

She swallowed uncomfortably. “I’m not doing you a favor by giving you information to help you survive. I should have told you ages ago, I just never thought to.”

Jon shrugged. “Thank you anyway.” He bit his lip. “Would you… would you mind walking with me back to the Institute?” His shoulders drew up again as he hurriedly added, “It’s just- I’m worried Elias might have… commentary, on this, and I’d rather avoid that.”

“ Course.” She kept her thrilled observation that even if he was still frightened of her, he trusted her to keep him safe from Elias, to herself. It wasn’t an achievement to be preferable company to  _Elias Bouchard_ . 

They made the walk in silence, and sure enough, Elias was there in the Institute foyer, trying not to look put out. “Ah, good afternoon Jon! I was hoping to have a word…?”

“I’m busy, Elias, some other time,” Jon muttered, the combination of the speed of his steps and the hunch of his shoulders conspiring to make him look more diagonal to the floor than perpendicular. Elias opened his mouth as though to make another try, but Daisy snarled and put herself between the two of them until they made it to the Archive steps.  A muscle in Elias’ jaw twitched.

“Alright?” she asked as they navigated the narrow stairwell,  hand shoved into her pocket and holding tight to the inside to keep it from floating up to rest on the small of Jon’s back or his shoulder . She’d go now if he wanted, but she’d prefer to see him safely to somewhere Basira could run interference if Elias turned up again.

Jon nodded jerkily. “Yes, yes, that went… much better than it could have. Thank you.”

“Any time.” She couldn’t quite disguise the amount of emotion and sincerity behind the words, and she was glad Jon’s back was to her, taking the stairs ahead of her.

Jon half turned as he opened the heavy door into the Archives, pushing with his shoulder so he ended up partially facing her. “Thank you again.”

She nodded, ignoring the way they were half-over the threshold like teens returning from their first date and the way she could see Martin glaring daggers at her from over Jon’s shoulder. “Basira and I still have movie nights Fridays. You’re welcome any time you want to come. I got- I bought an armchair. So if you don’t want to sit on the couch with us you don’t have to.” Her heart pounded more heavily than it should have.

Jon’s eyebrows shot up, and he stumbled over his response, “I- that- I’ll have to think about it.”

She nodded again, “Offer stays open. Bye, Jon.” It didn’t feel like a final farewell, when she turned her back and trotted back up the stairs.  _He’d think about it._ That was loads better than a flat no.

Or he was worried about her reaction if he didn’t leave the possibility open, she reminded herself sternly. She had to prepare for the worst outcome, as well as the best. She was so focused on debating how Jon had meant it that she nearly ran Elias down as she emerged from the stairwell. If she’d spotted his face before stopping instinctively, she might have done it anyway.

“Would you mind stepping into my office, De _tec_ tive?”  his tone made it clear it wasn’t an offer he intended to let her refuse.

Daisy kept her expression light and neutral. “Sure.” She did mind, in fact.

He waited until he was seated behind his desk with the door firmly shut before so much as looking at her again. Had the petty tactics to make her feel like a child sent to the principal’s office worked on her in the first timeline? They seemed almost pathetically transparent now. Although, back then her interactions with Elias had been mostly perfunctory, receiving new assignments or reporting back on old ones.

“I don’t appreciate your interference in my Archivist’s development, Detective.”

She  kept her emotions off her face. She’d learned he had an unusually difficult time pulling things out of her head, she assumed because of something the time travel did. “Shouldn’t have lost him, then.”

Elias’ brows arched down at a disdainfully minute angle. “As I believe we have discussed before, I knew where he was  _the entire time_ .”

Daisy shrugged languidly. “If you say so. Even then, pretty sure he’s still mine by right of conquest.”  Her mouth twitched smugly.  She knew talking about Jon this way made him uncomfortable (had always known and excused it to herself) but Jon wasn’t here.  And s he wasn’t sure there were many other kinds of language that had a chance at getting it through  Elias’ thick skull that she meant it, and she wasn’t going to give Jon up.

“I would remind you that I’m still in possession of considerable evidence your superiors would be unable to ignore, were it to make its way to them. And that the chances of it being released to them increase drastically the more you interfere.”

She frowned slightly. She wasn’t afraid of prison, doubted they could hold her for long, and the threat had worked better when she was someone who thought she might still have a future with the police if Elias nosed out, when she didn’t know for absolutely certain that even if she was removed from the picture entirely Basira would be able to keep herself (and Jon, she had promised to look out for Jon) safe from both supernatural and mundane threats, but it  _would_ be inconvenient. And this had been going on for long enough that Elias  _was_ probably getting impatient.

“That would be unfortunate. I’d hate to leave Jon and Basira alone, without me around to protect them.” It seemed like as good a time as any to pull out the big guns. “They still let you write and call and have visitors in prison, though. Plenty of ways to let them know I think they’d be safer staying close to the Institute. And that there are plenty of  _interesting_ things to find in the tunnels.”

“Given that their focus is essential to stopping the Unknowing from destroying the world as we know it,  redirecting it to something so trivial would be exceedingly foolish .” He raised an eyebrow critically.

She didn’t let herself roll her eyes at the lie. “Maybe I’d rather have them safe than save the world. I’ve looked at Tim’s research; the tunnels are extensive enough to keep them occupied even for a long prison term.  Looks like t hey might  extend all the way to what’s left of Millbank Prison, and its old Panopticon. Seems like an interesting sight-seeing trip for an avatar of the Eye.”

Elias’ face stayed even, but his fingers twitched ever so slightly; she wouldn’t have seen it if she wasn’t looking for it. “Is there a point to all this, or can I ask that you make travel plans on your own time?”

“I just think it’s interesting.” She let her lips curl into a sharp smile. “D’you know there’s pictures up online of the last two directors of the Institute before you? I think it’s interesting that they have the exact same eyes as you do, too.”

Elias’ jaw clenched. “I don’t believe we have any further business, Detective. You’re dismissed.”

She snorted. “’Dismissed,’ you talk like such an old man. When were you born, the eighteenth century?” She strode confidently out of the office, not allowing doubt to cloud her mind or her face. He was almost certainly still Watching her, but she didn’t let that stop her from stopping on the stair landing to have a good long laugh at her own joke. If the laughter was tinged slightly with nervous hysteria, he probably couldn’t tell. She should… probably find a way to tell Jon and Basira about the whole “Jonah Magnus” (even thinking the name made her sick made her stomach turn made her remember what he _did_ ) business, now that she thought of it. Preferably without prompting them to doubt her sanity or do something to anger him into sticking something nasty in their heads.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I may or may not miss updating over the next three days (Wednesday, Thursday, and/or Friday) bc of Thanksgiving. If that's the case, daily updates will resume Saturday


	4. Jon

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> writing this was like pulling teeth, mostly the bits with elias :/ but i finished, and i'm back!!!

“ Er, Martin?” Jon snagged his assistant’s wrist as he set a mug on tea on his desk,  looking up through his bangs so he wouldn’t have to make proper eye contact. “I was wondering- I mean, I don’t want to impose, but I was thinking- that is, Daisy invited me to a movie night with her and Basira, but I don’t want to go alone, so I was wondering if you’d mind coming with me? Only I didn’t want to ask Daisy if she minded until I knew you would,  or that you didn’t mind I mean, because I don’t want to give anyone a false,  uh, impression, so it would depend on her answer once I ask, if it is alright  with you .”

Martin didn’t withdraw his hand from Jon’s loose grasp, and even though his purpose of stopping Martin had been served, Jon didn’t let go. Martin’s brow furrowed. “You really want to go?”

Jon pulled his hand back, twisting it with the other in his lap and looking down. “I mean. I know it’s not…  it’s not normal, and I probably shouldn’t go, but-”

“No!  _No_ , I didn’t mean it like that!” Martin leaned across the desk and set a hand lightly on Jon’s shoulder. “God, Jon, I don’t want you to feel guilty for- for feeling  _lonely_ , I just want you to be safe! I mean!” Blood rushed to Martin’s cheeks as Jon flinched  away  at the phrasing, recalling how many times it had been used to justify Daisy pulling him closer, giving him less freedom, and then in her halting attempts to explain herself. “I’m sorry. I  _intended_ to double check that you were asking because you wanted to go, and not because she was pressuring you.”

“Oh.” Leave it to him to choose the worst possible interpretation at every juncture. If he was just able to believe the best in people, if he wasn’t so paranoid and suspicious, how much of this would never have happened?  Idiot. “I’m sorry, I misunderstood. The only time Daisy even mentioned it you were there for, when she walked me back to the Archive.  She isn’t- t his is something  _I_ want.”

“You don’t have to  apo -” Martin sighed, rubbed his forehead. “Of course I’ll come with you, Jon. Even if she says no, if you want to go that badly I’ll come anyway.  It’s not a bother or an imposition to help you feel safe. And besides,” he smiled lopsidedly, “you’ve seen my life outside of work, it’s not as though I have a packed social calendar!”

Jon nodded slowly. “Thank you. I can- I’ll text her now.” He bit his lip, staring down at his phone and trying to decide how to phrase it.

_I think I might be free for movie night Friday. Is is alright if Martin comes with me?_

The answer came through almost immediately, making them both jump at the chime.

_Yes :)_

“She said yes.” He held the phone up unnecessarily so Martin could see for himself.

“It’s a date then.” Martin smiled, then seemed to process what he had said, “I mean-!”

“Righ t, ” Jon ducked his head. “Thank you for the tea!”

“Right!” Martin squeaked, high-tailing it out of the office.

-

“Jon!” Jon froze at the voice, clutching his stack of books to his chest and debating whether to hang onto the vestiges of his dignity and face it or run flat out. He felt convinced now that Daisy had been right, when she’d said Elias would only ever give him partial truths and manipulate him.

He was too slow, and the decision was made for him as Elias stepped up alongside him and placed a hand on his shoulder. Jon tried to scan the hallway subtly,  tense under the unexpected and unwelcome contact, but he’d taken to using the less traveled parts of the Institute specifically to  _avoid_ Elias, and no other employees were in sight- much less any of his assistants. He straightened as much as he could and tried to put on the mask of a normal department head talking to his boss, not a  former fugitive talking to the man who’d framed him for murder. “Elias.”

“ It’s been too long since we chatted, just the two of us.” Elias’ teeth glinted in the wide frame of his bland smile. “Why don’t you come with me to my office.” The flat tone and tightening grip on his shoulder made it clear it wasn’t a request.

Jon scoffed as he was propelled forward. “What, want some privacy so you can murder me as well?”

Elias sighed as though he was being ridiculous. “What do I have to do for you to trust that I have  _only_ your best interests at heart, Jon?”  His grip shifted to Jon’s elbow as they arrived at his office, then vanished entirely as he shut the door behind them and seated himself behind his desk. Jon stayed standing.

“I think that ship sailed a while ago,  _Elias_ .”  Something passed over Elias’ face at the emphasis on his name, but Jon couldn’t parse it.

“ But it hasn’t for Detective Tonner?” The tone was deliberately bland, but the quirk of Elias’ eyebrow made it clear it was meant as a barb.

Jon glared. “You weren’t interested in interfering when I  _didn’t_ want to be around Daisy, so I don’t see why it should be any of your business now that I do.”

“Don’t mistake a lack of my presence for a lack of  concern , Archivist.” Elias’ voice went taut. “Had I been able to insert myself without undue risk to your health, I would have done so. And you came out alright on your own merits, regardless. You continue to exceed my expectations, Jon.”

The softer voice Elias adopted for the last made something inside Jon curdle uncomfortably. It was the kind of praise he used to delight at, but now it felt like a trap closing before he even realized he’d stepped into it. “You could have informed my assistants, if you were so concerned.  Your  _concern_ is at best incompetent , and at worst it’s just a mask for another  _test_ .” He clenched his fists in the fabric of his trousers.

Elias gave him a pitying look. “Don’t mistake easy answers for truth, Jon. Or for the lack of animosity. Just because Detective Tonner tells you what you want to hear doesn’t mean she has your best interests at heart. Or anyone else in the Archives’. She’s committed violence worse than any you’ve witnessed from her. Do you know the kinds of things she’s planning? Do you know the kinds of things she _really_ thinks about you, in the privacy of her own head?” Would Daisy hurt his assistants? Not Basira, but she nearly had hurt Tim, maybe badly, and admitted she didn’t much care for them either way as long as Jon and Basira were content. But did he trust Elias to value their safety any more?

He clenched his teeth. “Do  _ you _ ?” It was a gamble, but he suspected if Elias could see into their heads- or at least Daisy’s head- as readily as he pretended, the need for their conversation in the tunnels would have been eliminated long before it ever happened. Elias’ mouth quirked down a bit in annoyance, and Jon pressed on. “Do you have anything to say related to my  _work_ ? Because I don’t believe what I choose to do when I’m off the clock is any of your business.”

Elias stood, rounding the desk slightly, weight casually balanced against  its surface by his left hand. Before Jon could react, the right darted forward and grasped him gently by the chin. Jon’s spine went rigid, his insides churning as alarm overrode the impulses that might move him away, arms too occupied with the library books he was still holding to shove the older man away.  He swallowed, and hoped it didn’t sound as much like a gulp as it felt.  “Be careful, Archivist. There are worse things in the world than me.  O r even Detective Tonner.”

Jon heaved in a breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding when Elias’ hand dropped. “We’re done here.” He turned and tried to maintain a normal pace all the way out and back down to his own office.

Luckily, none of his assistants were in the Archives’ main room, so Jon was able to shut the door and half-collapse into his chair unmolested.  Almost absently, Jon found himself pulling out his phone and selecting Daisy’s name.  The contrary, trouble-making part of himself his grandmother had despaired at was furious that Elias had tried to insert himself, now of all times. Even if he wasn’t sure how to feel about Daisy himself, the implication that he should avoid her made him want to stubbornly cling to her all the harder. Rebellious frustration propelled his hands into typing out a message.

_Just had a one on one meeting with Elias._

He stared down at the message as it sent, slowed by the Archive’s terrible reception. It felt only fair to alert Daisy,  he reasoned,  given she had been the one keeping Elias off his back for  this long. The phone chimed twice in rapid succession.

_> :(_

_u ok?_

He bit his lip as he considered his response.

_Fine. He did imply I should be more concerned about your murder plans. Anything I should know about?_

She probably wouldn’t tell him if there was, but if he was going to try building an actual friendship with Daisy, he figured he should extend his commitment to trusting others at least far enough to ask instead of drawing conclusions.

_not unless ur invested in th survival of elias +/or_ _th_ _circus?_

_I believe the implication was that I should be concerned for my assistants, specifically._

_i d_ _nt_ _have any ACTIVE plans. cant spk for th other monsters of th world obv_

Jon’s forehead creased as he again recalled Daisy’s worrying ambivalence in the tunnels toward anyone but himself and Basira, but before he could get too worked up he received another message.

_i am joking plz lmk if u hear abt anything trying_ _2_ _get them i dnt want ANY of you to die !_

_or b maimed :/_

_i have a strong anti maiming stance generally_

Trusting his instinct to take the messages as Daisy trying to be either reassuring or funny, Jon pecked out a careful response.

_Haha._

-

Brief though they may have been, having had two text conversations in the span of a week seemed to have  opened some kind of floodgate, and suddenly Jon was receiving more texts in a day from Daisy than he ever had. They rarely dealt with anything of note, consisting primarily of cat pictures pulled from the internet or Daisy’s own blurry attempts at photographing any strays she came across.  By the time Friday arrived, Jon had stopped feeling obligated to give a response to every one, and had even sent a few pictures of his own back, primarily of The Admiral.

Martin had made an obvious effort to swallow down his worries, to the point that he only asked Jon if he was “really sure about this” once, accepting his affirmation with good grace. He’d also insisted on bringing a large bin of caramel corn, muttering something not quite coherent about politeness and being a good guest.

Daisy opened the door and beamed at Jon over Martin’s shoulder when they rang the bell. “Hi!”

Jon ducked his head. “Hello, Daisy. Is Basira here yet, or are we early?”

“I’m here!” Basira’s voice rang out from the depths of the flat.

As they stepped inside and Daisy did up all the locks behind them, either not noticing or choosing to ignore Martin’s worried glance, Jon surveyed the flat, keeping his eyes away from the door to the spare room. The living room had been rearranged, the couch pushed over at an angle to accommodate a broad, plush chair with what looked like a weighted blanket tossed over the back.

“Here,” Basira emerged from the kitchen to shove a bowl of popcorn into Jon’s arms, already doused in salt and butter. “We’ve got more bowls if you want to share that, Martin.”

“Yes!” Martin didn’t quite startle at being addressed, torn form his own survey of the flat. “Yes, it’s for sharing.”

Daisy glanced between the three of them, and for the first time Jon noticed that she looked nearly as awkward as he felt. Jon gave Martin a tiny shove, silent permission to turn his anxious lean toward Basira  and the kitchen into motion unmoored by worry about what might happen to Jon if left alone, and he and Daisy drifted over to sit, her perched on the edge of the couch furthest from the chair and Jon in the new seat, kneading the blanket with his hands. It was soft.

They remained nervously silent until the other two returned, Martin offering a bowl of caramel corn toward Jon with a questioning eyebrow. “Jon won’t want any, he doesn’t like _sweet popcorn_ ,” Daisy teased, looking nearly surprised at her own words, as though she’d said them before thinking them through.

Jon deliberately released tension from his shoulders and looked down his nose at her. “Caramel corn is good. Just because _kettlecorn_ is an abomination doesn’t mean all popcorn variants are bad.”

Basira groaned. Martin furrowed his brow and spoke before she could. “What’s wrong with kettlecorn?”

Jon hunched his shoulders, frowning. “It’s too sweet to be salty and too salty to be sweet! It’s like cardboard if cardboard was an assault on your tastebuds instead of tasteless. It’s a waste of perfectly good popcorn!” He punctuated his words with a wild, vague gesture, nearly tipping the bowl in his lap.

Basira groaned again, giving Martin a light shove before collapsing backward onto the couch and passing Daisy her own bowl. “He went on for _ten minutes_ last time we had this conversation.”

Jon tried to fight down a blush. “I’m right!” Martin looked between them, looking at a loss both for his place in the conversation and whether he should sit down alongside Basira.

Daisy snorted, aiming her remote and navigating the menu. “You can sit by Jon if you don’t want to sit with us, Martin. ‘s more of a loveseat than an armchair, really. You should both fit.”

Jon jolted into action, nodding and scooting over to leave Martin a space, patting the seat. Martin cautiously took it. It was a bit tight, but they did fit.

As the movie started, Daisy eyed the two of them and leaned over to whisper something to Basira. Basira glanced at her, then to them, then back at Daisy, eyebrows climbing her forehead. Daisy nodded, smiling in a way that was somewhere between smug and delighted. Basira laughed.

Jon glared. “What are you whispering about?” He felt Martin lean around him to shoot the girls a look of his own, arm coming up to rest reassuringly on Jon’s shoulder. He wasn’t _worried_ , but he appreciated the thought.

Daisy _giggled._ “Don’t worry about it!” She elbowed Basira and raised an eyebrow, setting off another round of laughter, but no amount of needling could get them to reveal what was so funny.

Halfway through the movie, when Jon caught Daisy holding up her phone to snap a photo of them, the tension of being pressed against each other relaxed into an easy mutual lean inwards, he leaned over the arms of both chair and couch to take up a throw pillow and hurl it at her head. He missed, and the pillow managed to tumble into both half-full bowls of popcorn, sending them flying dramatically. Then it was his and Martin’s turn to laugh, as Daisy picked popcorn kernels out of her hair and Basira retreated to the bathroom to remove pieces that had managed to work their way under her headscarf, her creative cursing still audible through the door.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Daisy: psst future jon and martin were in love  
> Basira: 👀👀👀


	5. Daisy

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this is waaaay later in the day than i usually update, but it is still technically on time! in related news, I'm still aiming for daily updates until this is done, but can't promise more than every other day bc the end of the semester is slowly eating away at my sanity
> 
> this chapter is where the graphic violence warning comes in! CW for violence that would be gory if it was being committed against something besides spooky mannequin people!

Daisy had never actually been to Gertrude’s storage locker the first go around, just seen the explosives after Jon, Martin, and Melanie had somehow managed to get them back to the tunnels. She didn’t let herself think of how quickly things could have gone wrong, looking at the locker for herself. The explosives were crammed in under and alongside innumerable cardboard boxes. They were lucky that they’d found them at all, the metal and plastic of their case the only thing to differentiate it from the other packages filling the unit.

She hadn’t considered the risks inherent in someone as untrained and _unlucky_ as Jon trying to transport this much firepower through London, more focused on his t-shirt and the implications of it appearing in her dreams before she ever saw it in person. He _should_ have gotten her help as soon as he saw what it was, but… it wasn’t as though she’d made herself a friendly, accessible, or helpful presence, back then.

“Is this where you’ve been keeping our skin?” The voice, grin apparent even without seeing the face, drew her out of her thoughts. The woman staring into the storage unit with her hands on her hips had an odd cant to her posture, and half a dozen mostly-blank mannequins flanking her. The mannequins matched those Daisy’d spent both versions of this year hunting down for Elias; she vaguely recognized the leader as Sarah Baldwin- or the thing pretending to be her, at least.

“What’s left of it.” She rolled her neck as she turned, readying for a fight. Probably best to keep it away from the unit itself, just in case. Even  aside from the explosives, if Gertrude had been crazy enough to keep  _them_ here who was to say she didn’t have something else nasty tucked in among the eyeless dolls and coded notes?

Baldwin’s face twisted in anger. “You destroyed it.”

Daisy shrugged, resting a hand lightly on her gun. “Not personally.”

Baldwin tapped her chin, frown changing back to a smile without anything in between. Daisy had always hated the way the Stranger’s ilk did that, like they were swapping out one mask for another without her eyes being able to spot the moment of exchange. “That’s alright. It’s not as though we don’t have a _backup plan_. Do you think the Archivist will come to us, if we take his favorite hunting hound?”

Daisy remembered how Jon had been, after he’d come back from the Circus. She hadn’t cared, initially, about his newly intensified aversion to touch- barely noticed a difference, given his preexisting wariness around her- but it had still been there after the coffin, mixing and conflicting with the cold and lonely longing for  contact .  She’d thought she’d even been able to see vestiges of it after Jon’s mind was lost to the Archive, fine shudders a t Jonah’s hand on his shoulder that she might have been imagining.

Baldwin seemed a bit surprised, as much as something like her could be, at the intensity of Daisy’s ire as she growled and surged forward, all sense leaving her in her rage, forgoing the gun to try and tear Baldwin and her gang of mannequins apart with her bare hands.

The mannequins were dumb and fragile so long as you knew where to hit, and she’d fought so many of them at this point that she could probably do it in her sleep. Baldwin was different, though, still enough left of the original woman- or maybe enough native intelligence in whatever wore her- to think strategically. Daisy realized this too late, too occupied heaving one of the mannequins away to stop the hand lifting her gun from her hip.

She stood stiff as Baldwin examined the firearm before hurling it as far away as she could manage with a laugh. Not ideal, but better than being shot herself.

Baldwin was stronger than she looked. Daisy realized this at the same time she realized she’d never tangled with her directly before, just gotten a shot in before losing her. Daisy tore and hit with everything she had, but without a chase to feed the Hunt, and with the remaining mannequins at her back in addition to Baldwin’s unexpected strength, she couldn’t keep herself from being pulled into a headlock, the unyielding, unnatural arm around her throat slowly cutting off her air supply. Above her, Baldwin giggled.

The two mannequins peeled off as black spots started to take up the majority of her vision, and distantly she heard the squeak of a human voice. She barely had time to wonder of some poor idiot had managed to pick the worst possible moment to come to their own storage unit when the human voice spoke. The _familiar_ human voice. “Statement of the entity calling itself Sarah Baldwin, regarding its acquisition of the name and its role in the Unknowing. Statement taken direct from subject, July 2nd, 2017. Statement begins!”

She didn’t register what Baldwin was saying, ears buzzing and vision hazy from more than oxygen deprivation.  _Jon_ was here. Had he followed her, or been lured there some other way? Did he know the Circus would take him if they had the chance? Had she  warned him?

She could feel the thrall of the statement loosening Baldwin’s grip as all her focus was diverted into the words  that spilled unwillingly from her mouth . As her vision started to clear, Daisy tilted her head up to see Jon, held in place by the two remaining mannequins. One held his arms tight behind his back while the other had one  hand in his hair, pulling his head back at a painful-looking angle,  with the other not covering his mouth so much as shoving as much of  the plastic hand as it could down his throat,  letting his weight to hang exclusively by his arms and hair. She could see the emotions of the statement flickering across Jon’s face in time with Baldwin’s words; he looked more terrified and disturbed than she sounded. Daisy wondered if it was tinged by his position, or if he just had a greater ability to feel  the fear than whatever wore a dead woman’s skin. Occasionally, Jon’s legs bicycled weakly  in the air , but  for the most part he barely struggled.

As Baldwin’s grip continued to loosen and she was able to draw air into her lungs, the black obscuring Daisy’s vision was replaced with red. If she didn’t act quickly, when the statement was over Baldwin would go back to choking her- maybe kill her faster, with her only possible use as bait for Jon rendered moot, and they would take him. The others might not even realize he was missing, and even if they did she was the only one who knew _where_ the Circus would take him. Then, Jon’s survival would depend entirely on the _reliability of the Distortion_ acting as it had before. They would _skin him_ , he’d _die_ , and all Daisy’s efforts coming back would have only made things worse.

As Baldwin’s statement wound down- it was a short one, Daisy noted distantly- her arm finally grew lax enough for Daisy to throw the hold. She tossed Baldwin to her back and stomped on her throat, hard, over and over until sawdust and cloves spilled across the ground, then repeated the operation on her chest. When she was sure the greatest threat wouldn’t be getting up again, she hurled herself at the mannequins holding Jon.

They weren’t terribly bright, especially without their leader, but they knew enough to have started carrying him away while she was distracted. She tried to extract him from their grasp as gently as she could, but one of the mannequins came away with a handful of his hair and as she shoved him away from the fight she could hear all the breath go out of him as he hit the ground.

Daisy realized she was growling, deep in her chest, as she stomped the mannequins into unidentifiable fragments of plastic. It felt good, beating all the fear and panic out onto the things responsible, so she went back to Baldwin, kicking until the body was pockmarked with more tears, spilling sawdust and cloves across the pavement, and then all the rest of the mannequins.

Eventually, she remembered that although the most immediate threat was vanquished, Jon was still in an unfamiliar place with no one but her to keep an eye on him. She took a step toward him, before turning to retrieve her gun, grab the case full of explosive, and lock the storage unit back up first.

Jon was still on the ground, legs splayed and back pressed tight into a little corner where the fronts of the lockers weren’t quite even. He was breathing heavily, and he had a hand to his throat, rubbing like it was sore, his other resting in his lap, white-knuckled around a tape recorder.  He was making a choked-off noise in his throat, not quite a sob or a whimper, but not something he seemed able to suppress.  His eyes never left her. Daisy crouched in front of him. “You alright?”

He nodded. His entire body was shaking slightly, and his eyes were focused on her, but didn’t seem to quite see her. Cautiously, she reached out to touch his shoulder.

He jerked away from her hand, the movement as much a retreat as a flinch, and banged his head into the brick wall next to him. Without thinking, Daisy surged forward and grabbed him, feeling the side of his head for injury and gripping his shoulder so he couldn’t move like that again. The tremors intensified under her hands.

“Jon,” she tried to keep her voice even, reassuring, non-threatening, “there’s no one here but me. Everything else is gone, you’re safe, alright? I need to know if you can stand, so we can get back somewhere properly safe.”

He made a long whine deep in his throat instead of answering, but he did scramble to his feet. Daisy drew back (shouldn’t have touched him like that what was she thinking) and watched him carefully, ready to catch him if he wobbled.  At least he wasn’t crying. “Did Martin come with you? Or Melanie?  Tim? ”

He shook his head. “I-I came alone.”

She huffed, but  kept her thoughts on that for later. “C’mon. I’ll drive you back to the Institute. Or wherever you’ve been staying, if you give me the address.”

Their progress was slowed by Daisy’s struggle to reconcile the necessity of leading the way herself, since Jon didn’t know where her car was, and the desire to keep him in sight, but they made it out of the maze of units eventually. “How did you even know to come here?”

Jon stared at the ground. He was still trembling. “When you asked me for  Gertrude’s key- you’ve hardly told us anything about the Unknowing, so I had Melanie help me look into where it might have been from before I gave it to you.  Thought there might be something worth finding,  even if I couldn’t get into the unit . ”

“Why didn’t she come, if she helped with the research?”

“I didn’t tell anyone I was going to come-”

“ What?!” He froze completely at her interruption, but she couldn’t just leave it there.  She took a deep breath. “Jon, please don’t go places alone  without at least telling someone- anyone!- where you’re going. What if you’d arrived and it had just been Baldwin?” She tried to keep her voice as soft  and reassuring as she could, but judging by the way he hunched in on himself, she didn’t succeed.

They were nearly halfway back to the Institute before Daisy broke the silence again. “Thank you for the rescue. I probably wouldn’t have made it out of there if you hadn’t come along. I just wish you’d been more careful about it, going somewhere you knew might be dangerous. If the Circus catches you alone, they’ll  _take you_ , do you get that?”

Jon nodded, not making eye contact. “I just wanted to know more about what was happening. What if the Unknowing arrives and you can’t stop it alone? You should let us  _help_ .”

Daisy hoped the way her grip on the steering wheel tightened wasn’t noticeable. “I have it handled. You don’t need to worry about the Unknowing, Jon, I promise.”

“And what if I  _hadn’t_ come along?” His voice rose, and his hands started to twitch in his lap, not quite up to gesticulating yet, but getting there, “If you weren’t here any more, we’d have no idea what you were working on, or how to stop it on our own! You haven’t told us where it is, or what you’re going to do, or how! If something happens to you, we’ll be working practically from scratch, and  _the world will end_ , Daisy!”  He winced and looked away as soon as the tirade ended.

She drew in a breath through clenched teeth. She couldn’t explain why the Unknowing didn’t really matter, not here, where Elias could  be (and almost certainly was) watching them . She did a quick mental review of her options, before settling on, “ Send me Tim’s number. I’ll clue him in on more of the plan, so if something happens to me you’ll still be prepared. The case I took from the storage unit is plastic explosive. I’m going to wait until the Unknowing starts and then blow it up.” She knew Jon and Basira both could deal just fine if Tim died, and he was more invested in destroying the Circus than the others. And hopefully the  _how_ would placate Jon for now, even if she didn’t want to reveal the  _where_ when there was no plausible explanation for how she knew (and when there was always a chance Jon might take it upon himself to go investigate).

Jon sighed, folding in on himself, as they pulled up in front of the Institute. “Sure you’re alright?” she asked before he could climb out of the car.

“I don’t think Martin and I  will be at movie night this week,” he said in a quiet voice.

Daisy nodded and watched him go, even as her heart sunk.


	6. Jon

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> what, you thought jon was going to _avoid_ being kidnapped by the circus? in _my_ fic? *evil laugh*

Jon woke when his head slammed down into something hard and metallic. It took several rounds of aggressive blinking and another rattling jolt to realize that the reason he couldn’t see was the blindfold tied around his eyes. 

Once he was aware of the blindfold, the rest came quickly: the wad of cloth filling his mouth and making his jaw ache, the ropes wrapped around his arms and legs, and the hum of an engine vibrating up through whatever surface he was lying on. Unfortunately, the knowledge of how he came to be there wasn’t so forthcoming.

He furrowed his brow in thought as he fruitlessly tried to wriggle  free of his bonds. He remembered  ducking out of Martin’s flat to grab some tea- he’d been faintly surprised Martin didn’t have a stash of  backup boxes hidden somewhere, but that was probably an unfair and limited assessment of the man- from the  shop two blocks away. Martin had offered to go but Jon had insisted; it wasn’t a long walk, with the way still lit by the late afternoon sun, and a solitary stroll had seemed like just the thing to clear his head. More the fool him, apparently.  It was pounding now.

He knew he’d made it  to the shop, and at least part of the way back, because he remembered noting that an alley that had been empty on his previous passing was now occupied. Said occupant had said something…

If his head didn’t hurt so much, Jon would have banged it against the floor again. Then he didn’t have to, as the van (and it must be a van) went over another bump and did it for him.  Stupid.

As he’d come upon the alley, the occupant had called out to him. “Can I have a cigarette?” He’d thought it was odd, since he was walking fairly fast and only holding a box of tea, no lighter or packet, and the wording combined with the (probably drunk, he’d thought in the moment) swaying of the stranger had been enough to bring the taste of an old statement to his lips, enough to startle him. He had started to trip, caught himself, and then…

Well, even if he couldn’t remember  _exactly_ what happened next, he thought he could do a fair job filling the blanks in on his own. That answered the  _who_ , but not the  _why_ .

Daisy had mentioned, the last time he’d seen her, that the Circus would take him given the chance, but she hadn’t  _said_ why. He hadn’t asked. He’d considered it, as the momentary terror of both the feeling of plastic hands pulling his body into positions that made it clear they had never known how real bodies  moved and the fury on Daisy’s face as she had smashed everything in sight to smithereens with nothing  but her boots had faded, but. It had been bad, after he’d left her car. He’d locked his door at night for the first time since his first week staying with Martin, spent the whole day after flinching from any unexpected touch. And a week was hardly the longest they’d gone without contact;  hardly an egregious period to go without texting her beyond sending on Tim’s contact information as requested. And with Basira, and Tim returning from a new kind of occasional journey into the tunnels with a vicious, grief-edged grin on his face, he’d known she was alright.  He assumed the silence on her end had meant she understood, and was giving him space.

He’d thought he had a right to a break, after such a visceral reminder of the kind of violence Daisy could visit on her enemies (he had the sense, though he hadn’t seen him, that Elias was pleased; if he weren’t so aware of the processes that led him to the storage unit almost entirely independent of anyone else’s knowledge or opinion, he’d accuse him of having arranged it). He’d forgotten that the Archivist didn’t seem to have a right to anything but the ill-gotten secrets he tore from unwary monsters.

He tried to focus on the anger and the questions, rather than the way his shoulders were beginning to cramp and the gag was making him drool. Everyone heard “the Archivist” and expected Gertrude, unflappable and eminently prepared.  Someone worthy of her legacy, at the very least. He  wasn’t, but he felt he should at least attempt the facade, and if he thought too long about where they might be taking him, what they might  _do_ to him (Mike Crew’s body pressed against his in the boot, a shovel in his hands, a gun to his  back ) all hope of appearing collected when they arrived would be lost.  Martin would notice he was missing soon enough. Help might already be on its way!

He’d been aware that when the pair  of deliverymen had first acquired it  years  ago the van had been old, but the point had been well and truly driven home by the time it pulled to a stop. He had been tossed around so much he felt sure that when the gag was finally removed all his teeth would spill out  after it like marbles, and every part of him ached from uncushioned impact with the walls and floor. On a few heart-stopping occasions, he had even rolled up against a  moaning wooden surface that could only have been the coffin,  and bruised himself further flinging himself away as well as he could manage.

He was hefted wordlessly over a broad shoulder like a sack of flour, his muffled grunts and determined squirming ignored. Or maybe never noticed at all. He’d never had the best spatial awareness, but as soon as they pas sed from the cool air of the outside (and his stomach sunk at the thought that those brief moments might be the last he ever felt the wind on his skin) into wherever the Circus had made  its base, it was completely lost. He couldn’t have said what made the building so disorienting, but he couldn’t even count his captors’ steps beneath him, or determine whether their turns went left or right. 

Eventually, head spinning, he was set down and re-secured to a metal chair, the blindfold and gag whipped off like a magician’s tablecloth. He swallowed convulsively and coughed several times, trying to subtly wipe the saliva that had dribbled down his chin off on his own shoulder, before addressing the figure before him. “Nikola Orsinov, I presume?”

He had to squint to see, his glasses lost at some earlier point in the abduction.  It was long and spindly, bleach white where it wasn’t covered by the ringmaster’s costume or smeared with a perfect bow of lipstick, and taller than any human.  Its every movement looked staged, predetermined and too smooth, as it clasped its hands and trilled, “Very good, Archivist!”

He thought of how Sarah Baldwin had frozen during her statement, unable to act on anything but the compulsion until it was done.  That wouldn’t do him much good here, tied up and outnumbered by things with a fair bit more intelligence than blank mannequins, but there had to be  _something_ he could Ask . He needed to stall for time until he could find it. “Why am I here?”

“For the dance! Since you’ve destroyed _our_ skin we need a _new_ one, and not just _any_ old rag, something _special!_ Powerful! And what better than an Archivist? All that order and fussy _watching_ repurposed as the star of the show when I dance the world new!” Its hands moved to its hips, and the painted lips were a frown, maybe had always been a frown, if he had seen no movement getting them there. “ _That_ wasn’t very nice at all, was it?”

“Not nice at all.”

“Downright rude, I’d say.”

Jon tried not to cringe at the voices from behind. He thought he might be shaking. He hadn’t meant to _Ask_ , he _knew_ he was unlikely to get a second chance, he couldn’t have wasted it, not on a _mistake_. He couldn’t! He felt his pulse kick up and tried to fight back tears pricking in his eyes.

Orsinov tutted. He tried not to look at the thing at its throat, incorporated into the knot of its bowtie and pulsing with every sound,  the only  meaty thing on an expanse of perfect plastic and tailoring . “I want to be hospitable, Archivist, but hospitality is a two-way street!” It (she? He spared a hysterical thought to wonder if his last moments were going to be spent worrying about misgendering a murderous mannequin) stepped closer, gripping his chin  and running a hand down his chest. When it came to  his pocket, it plucked a small tape recorder out. He didn’t remember putting it there. “How  _fun_ , shall we make a recording to send to all your little friends?”

He shook his head emphatically.  As emphatically as he could, at least. Even if it helped them find him, he felt sure he didn’t want Basira or Tim  or Melanie  or Daisy or  _Martin_ hearing whatever was going to happen next. Orsinov pouted, but set the recorder aside (was it running anyway?) .  He meant to apologize, or say something that would direct their focus elsewhere, anything, but what came out was, “What do you mean, ‘the star of the show?’” 

The fingers tightened and the lips flicked back into a smile. “You’re going to be my new frock! It’s in  _terrible_ condition, and we’re in a  _bit_ of a rush, but I’m sure we can get that skin of yours looking  _practically_ good as new in no time! And,” she added in a conspiratorial tone, “I  _have_ always like polka dots.” She drew back, releasing his chin, and slapped him across the face. He felt sure she could have struck harder, but it was still enough to jerk his head to the side, only to be pulled forward again by those firm, pointed fingers. “ _Very_ rude!”

Jon had never been the best at reading people’s expressions, but he wished that Nikola  _had_ one. He had no way to gauge how angry she was, how badly things were about to go as she pushed the fingers of her other hand past his lips. He gagged. How had his life come to a point where mannequins shoving their hands practically down his throat was a weekly occurrence? “I’d hate to have to do something drastic, Archivist.” Nikola purred, “but if you can’t behave yourself, it won’t ruin my costume to take out your tongue.”  Her fingers pinched around the offending organ, and he tried to suppress the noise it drew from him, somewhere between a whimper and a whine. “That’s what we’ll have to do if you can’t stop asking questions,  though! Are you going to behave?”

He nodded as well as he could with his tongue still held between her fingers, and told himself the tears welling in his eyes were solely due to the pain and  the triggering of his gag reflex. Nikola withdrew her hand and patted him on the cheek. “Good boy!”

-

He wasn’t left to consider what preparing his skin might entail for long, as it took barely an hour for Breekon and Hope to come  back,  trundling after Nikola like giant, Cockney ducklings, each with an armful of lotion. “ You can set all that over there, boys!” she directed, pointing in a graceful, arcing motion that reminded Jon more of a bead sliding down a string than a person. 

“Wh- I’d like to know what the lotion is for,” he didn’t- a sk, even though he had a sinking feeling he already knew. Nikola beamed over at him.

“I  _told_ you, your skin is in  _terrible_ condition!”

Their armfuls of lotion deposited, Breekon and Hope started to manhandle him out of his bonds. He wondered if it was worse that they were so eerily silent, or if they’d kept up a stream of annoyingly affected chatter. He never had a chance to run, each limb held  tight in a strong hand practically before it was released from the ropes. He didn’t start to panic until whichever one held his wrists transferred them both to a single hand and started to pick at his shirt buttons.

He jerked in their grasp. “This is- that’s really not necessary, if you- if you want- I can do it all myself!”

Nikola shook her head brightly. “Don’t be  _silly_ , Archivist, you can’t even  _reach_ everywhere!”

“I’m sure I can, you don’t- please!” His struggles and pleading went unacknowledged as Nikola tapped a finger to her chin.

“ It will take a while, to do it right all by ourselves. I’ll be right back!”

His shirt finally came away with a tearing noise, and he saw at least one of the buttons roll across the floor. “ No!” He didn’t know which part he was protesting. He didn’t want to be touched anymore, didn’t want his skin prepared to help end the world, didn’t want to add whatever other horrors lurked in the Circus to the blank eyes of wax figures watching him be subjected to this indignity  (was Elias watching as well was he sending help was he  _laughing_ at Jon?) .

Orsinov didn’t much care what he thought, as she returned with a troupe of beings that at least looked human-adjacent, even if their limbs were ball-jointed and one appeared to be bare muscle and sinew  and no skin. All watched attentively as the deliverymen finished stripping him, until there wasn’t a stitch left on him and they all surged forward as though at some unheard signal, gripping bottles of lotion with Orsinov leading the way.

He gave up on struggling quickly. At best, the slippery lotion would make them drop him, and the floor below was concrete. This outnumbered, with no idea of how to navigate to the exit, he was more likely to injure himself than escape. He went limp, and failed to ignore the feeling of plastic, lacquered wood, and skinless flesh rubbing into every part of him.  Nikola giggled and poked at his diaphragm as it heaved in a sob.

-

He held out hope that someone was coming for three days. He knew it was three days, because Nikola was meticulous about ensuring he was lotioned twice a day, and made sure to tell him so. Aside from the overwhelming crowd that appeared then, his primary company consisted of whatever members of the Circus passed through the room, and  whoever Nikola  brought with her to come measure him and dot out lines in permanent marker where she meant to cut into him.

He eventually tried to make conversation with the passersby, desperate for any information or company and careful not to ask questions, but that was a short-lived endeavor. “I can’t have you  _distracting_ anyone from our preparations, Archivist!” Nikola chirped as she forced a gag back into his mouth. 

His clothes never made a reappearance. He hadn’t been paying much attention in the moment, but he had the idea that at least some had ended up torn beyond use anyway. Instead, to keep the chill off of him (more because his teeth chattering and his shivering making the chair rattle were, apparently, nearly as distracting as his conversation than for his comfort) and, Nikola noted with glee, “kill two birds with one stone!” by keeping the ropes from rubbing his skin raw, when he wasn’t being lotioned he was bundled into a large duvet, and the ropes were tied around them both like a lumpy package. If he had any hopes that the intermediary of the duvet might give his some wiggle room, that was quickly dashed. He thought he’d be lucky, if he escaped, to have feeling come back to all four limbs.

It would have to be escape,  not rescue . Even if he hadn’t been alarmed right away, Martin would have to know something was wrong when Jon never returned for the night, and was absent from work the next morning. He would have told the others, and  if theycared  they would have tried to do  _something_ .

Maybe his decision to take a few days’ distance from Daisy was what had doomed him, he considered in the long, idle hours. He had felt sure that whatever her knowledge of the future entailed, it included the location of the Unknowing- and where else could it be, with all the preparations happening around him? Even if it was somehow a different place, the way she’d spoken about him before made Jon think that she would have found him regardless  (a thought that used to be horrifying but now held all his hopes- a grim reflection of his life in general) . But she never appeared. Maybe she’d finally taken his silence as a rejection of whatever possibility of friendship lay between them, and decided to throw out the violent possessiveness along with it. Decided, like so many others had, that Jonathan Sims wasn’t worth more  emotional investment than a professional acquaintance.

He  _had_ planned to talk with her again. He’d just needed time- time it seemed increasingly likely he would never have. It was terrifying, when she flew into a rage like that, but since… the future Daisy, he supposed, had arrived, it had never been directed at him. And Basira and Daisy both had mentioned she’d started attending support groups for grief and anger management.  And he genuinely enjoyed the calmer time spent together, the movie nights and lunch dates. He’d wanted to trust her to be better, and he’d wanted to try and build something good.

But he’d stopped talking to her. It was for different reasons, and he’d thought she’d understood, but  hadn’t sudden radio silence killed other budding friendships in  his past? He never meant to do it, he just forgot, or didn’t know what to say, and the connection died on the vine. Or maybe he was, as he’d always suspected, too much, too loud, too abrasive to be lovable, and Daisy had finally realized as much, and decided they were all better off without him.

Whatever Elias wanted with him, he’d never really thought there was anything special about him, Jon, that it needed, rather than him, the Archivist. He had a brief hope that salvation might come from that quarter anyway, but  it faded fast . When had Elias ever helped him like that? It was more likely, he decided, that he’d told the others he was dead, or indisposed, and promoted one of them to Head Archivist in his place in a bid to  steal back whatever power Nikola hoped his skin would grant her Ritual. 

Who would his replacement be? Basira took to the research better than Martin or Tim, and without Melanie’s murderous resentment, which taken in addition to her police training made her seem an ideal candidate. But then again, she was technically an Institute employee as part of a hostage situation. Tim and Melanie were too angry, too unlikely to fold to Elias’  prodding and demands as Jon so often had. Which left... Martin. Would he sign the papers to take Jon’s job without proof he was dead? Had Elias manufactured such proof? Basira or Martin…?

Even if Daisy and  Martin and the others had decided he wasn’t worth the effort to rescue (as he was certain must be the case as the days wore on and Nikola’s assessments of his skin became increasingly satisfied and delighted), he still wanted to return to them. He didn’t want to die, and he had too many regrets. He  _wanted_ to try a real friendship with Daisy. He wanted to reconcile with Tim and Melanie. He wanted to help Melanie and Basira quit. He wanted to thank Martin, for his spare room and his tea and his stalwart presence. As he paged through thoughts of his friends over and over, examining them in minute detail and from every angle to fill  the empty hours, he thought he might want to say... some other things to Martin as well.

But they’d decided he wasn’t worth the chance.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> catch me on tumblr @inklingofadream!


	7. Daisy

Daisy never took her phone on hunts. Basira knew that; had known almost as long as they’d been partners that if Daisy stopped answering her phone it meant she was on the trail of something serious. That calling or texting over and over would do no good, because Daisy and her phone probably weren’t even in the same building.

When she got back from a  ten day wild goose chase Elias had delighted at sending her off on,  she was tired enough to collapse into bed without turning it back on. When she finally checked it the next morning to see several dozen texts and missed calls from Martin, she rolled her eyes. Martin was sensible enough, but he was also prone to worrying over the smallest things. It wasn’t until she scrolled further to see that there were nearly half as many from  _Basira_ that her heart sunk.  Basira would only  keep trying like that if  something dire happened .

Daisy bypassed the messages to call Basira directly. As the phone rang, she flipped through all the awful things that could have happened while she was gone. Had they confronted Elias, or  encountered the Circus, or another avatar, or managed to tip Melanie deep enough into the Slaughter to be dangerous? Was someone hurt? Dead? Had she failed  _again_ ?

“Daisy!” Even with the distance of a phone call, Basira sounded terrible, exhausted and ragged.

“What’s happened? Are you alright? Is Jon?” Scrolling back through her notifications, while Martin and Basira were most heavily represented, Tim and Melanie and an unknown number she thought might be Georgie were there as well. None of the notifications were from Jon.

_No._

“Someone took him. We don’t know who.” Basira’s voice was pitched ever-so-slightly higher than usual, strained, as though she were unsure how to deliver the news delicately, but trying anyway.

Daisy’s breath caught. “Is anyone else hurt?”

“No.” She didn’t wait for Basira to add to that, slamming her boots on and  grabbing anything that she might need,  taking the stairs three or four at a time. If she went to the Institute,  she could interview all of them at once, figure out who had Jon and where  as quickly and accurately as possible . He was fine,  he had to be fine,  she would know if he was already dead,  wouldn’t she? If the hours she’d spent sleeping had destroyed her chance to save him…

Her hands shook on her car’s steering wheel.  _Someone_ would know if he was dead, she told herself. If not her, surely Elias, or one of the others. He’d said him dying would release the assistants- at least one of them would have noticed, felt something lift,  quit already. Basira hadn’t mentioned anything like that (she hadn’t given her time wasted time she was going to lose him  again again again ) so it must not have happened.

She ignored the looks she got tearing through the Institute lobby like it was on fire. None of them mattered, she didn’t know them, didn’t care, they were as good as dead after the Change anyway. The only people who  _mattered_ were hers, and one of them was missing, could be hurt,  _needed_ her.

Basira was at the entry to the Archives as she thudded to the bottom of the stairwell with a leap that took her down the last six steps at once.  Her eyes were circled and her mouth lined. Daisy wrapped her in a hug before she could  utter a word. She couldn’t help it, she  _needed_ physical proof that at least one of them was safe.

“Martin’s the one who realized he was missing,” Basira said as soon as she released her, knowing she’d want to speak with the closest thing they had to an eyewitness and jerking a thumb over her shoulder at his desk. Daisy nodded and pressed a kiss to Basira’s forehead in thanks.

If Basira had looked bad, Martin looked worse. The shadows under his eyes only served to emphasize their frantic, bloodshot light, and the sleeves of his clearly days-old shirt were covered in pale stains she realized must have come from spilled cups of tea- even rifling through notes at his desk, his hands were shaking terribly.

She had to call his name three times before he actually acknowledged her, and when he did the tension in his shoulders shifted- he didn’t relax, but  something about him seemed less desperate, less hopeless.  Angrier.  “Finally! Where have you been?”

She clenched her teeth. As though she wasn’t asking herself the same question. “Just tell me what happened.”

Martin ran his hands through his hair. “We realized there wasn’t any tea left in my flat, so Jon said he’d go down to the shop and get some. I offered to go with him, but he said he wanted some time alone to clear his head, of course he did, he never gets any time alone living with me, not really, and it was only a couple streets away! I figured after an hour that even if he got distracted that was too long, and it was starting to get dark, so I went looking for him. I found these,” he pulled a pair of objects from the chaos on his desk: a ragged looking box of tea, and Jon’s glasses, looking cleaner than she’d ever seen them. He’d clearly been worrying at them both, “on the pavement midway between the flat and the shop, but no Jon. I texted and called and walked around looking, but no one’s seen or heard from him since.”

“Melanie and Tim went around... getting into... every business with security cameras in the area, but there wasn’t anything,” Basira added, coming up from behind to rest a hand on Daisy’s shoulder. “Right now they’re upstairs  again , trying to get something usable out of Elias. So far it’s all been ‘focus on the Unknowing,’ and ‘I’m sure Jon will come through just fine.’”  Daisy cracked a thin, grim smile at the accent she affected to imitate Elias.

“I’ll check in again before I leave.” She hugged Basira one last time and ran out of the Archives as quickly as she’d entered.

The door to Elias’ office was half-open, though the corridor was devoid of eavesdroppers. She’d been able to hear echoes of the shouting an entire floor away. Inside, she could see Tim, red-eyed, and Melanie with knife in hand. Elias sat at his desk, fingers pinching the bridge of his nose, the perfect image of the put-upon bureaucrat.

Daisy slammed the door the rest of the way open. “What do you know?”

Melanie and Tim turned to look at her, and before Elias could answer Tim put in, with just as much venom as he’d  been using for Elias, “Where the hell have  _you_ been?”

“Detective Tonner,” Elias said, as though this were a regular, scheduled meeting, “How nice of you to join us.”

She pulled a hunting knife from her pocket and flicked it open. Melanie looked at it  enviously ; it was both larger and of higher quality than the one she held. “Tell me everything you know,  _right now_ , or I’ll gouge your eyes out.”

Said eyes flickered to the knife, then back to her face, not quite able to remain totally expressionless. “Need I remind you of what will happen to Basira if you do?”

“You don’t need eyes to live.” Truthfully, if the “heart of the Institute” schtick was true, she wasn’t sure if it was tied to Elias Bouchard’s body or Jonah Magnus’ consciousness or the  connection between the two, but the threat was specific enough she doubted he would call her bluff.  Besides, she was his best chance of getting Jon back in one piece and he knew it.

“…I believe he was taken by elements of the Stranger. Breekon and Hope.  I  am… unable to See where he is. ”

She didn’t let herself breathe a sigh of relief. That meant she knew where he was, at least. Instead she wheeled out of the office- then back in, to seize Tim and Melanie by the shoulders and steer them out ahead of her.

“ So the eye-gouging thing…” Melanie started when they were halfway down the Archives stairs. 

Daisy huffed. “Do me a favor and let it alone until we have Jon back.”

She chewed her lip. “Deal.”

“Where  _were_ you?” Tim hissed. 

She gestured him into the Archives, and waited until they were all within before replying, “ _Elias_ sent me to hunt something down for him. Turned out to be a wild goose chase. That’s why I was gone so long.” She kept the detail of her night of restful sleep to herself. That was something to discuss with Jon, and maybe Basira,  later . It wasn’t any of the others’ business.

“Do you think he planned this?” Basira asked. Behind her, Martin went even paler than usual, before his cheeks lit up red in realization and fury.

Daisy shrugged. She wouldn’t put it past him, with his  thing about getting Jon marked by all the Entities, but he also seemed genuinely irked at the idea of Jon being somewhere unseen, out of his reach. She snagged a random piece of paper off of Tim’s desk, since it was nearest, and started scribbling instructions.  Halfway through, she paused, grabbed a few more papers, and ordered, “Tunnels.”

She didn’t look to see if they followed her, just pulled her notes close while she waited for them to join her. She folded the first page in half and slapped it down on the ground next to her, moving onto the next.

All four  assistants  were half-circled around her, staring, by the time she finished. She folded the second bundle, and stood. “This,” she waved the first page, “is everything important about the Unknowing. I taught Tim how to set up the explosives if he really has to, if it comes down to it he’s in charge.” She shoved the page into his chest and held up the bundle. “ _This_ is all the future stuff.  _Don’t_ take it out of the tunnels, and don’t open it unless I die. The last thing we need is  to risk Elias pulling it all out of your heads.” She handed the pages to Basira, who tucked them into her jacket pocket while ignoring Tim and Melanie’s covetous looks.

“That all?” Tim’s snide tone was belied by the strength of his grip on the page and the worry in his eyes.

She wracked her thoughts. “Martin should go to bed.” The others gave her confused looks, while Martin himself sputtered, startled by her attention and her advice, so she elaborated. “Jon likes you best. And when he comes back from whatever’s happening, the last thing he needs is you looking like the rock bottom shot in one of those rehab reality shows.”

He sputtered some more as Basira nodded. “That’s a good point.”

Martin slumped. “Fair enough.” He was too exhausted to be embarrassed now, but Daisy was sure it would come to him later.

-

She probably set some kind of record on her way to the wax museum. Either for speed or number of laws broken. Possibly both. By the time she parked her car a ways away, hidden and not too far to run to if necessary, she could practically taste the blood on her teeth. She dug her nails into her wrist, trying to focus on the important thing: Jon. She couldn’t let herself lose track of him because she was distracted by the Hunt. And there probably wasn’t  even  anyone in the Circus who  _had_ blood, anyway.

She was nearly vibrating with tension as she slipped inside. She assured herself there was no reason to think it was too easy; if they had Jon, the Circus had no need to trap anyone else, and they hardly seemed the type to be worried about burglars.

She remembered the layout of the building from the hours spent studying blueprints the first time. She also remembered those memories becoming useless the moment the  Unknowing started. The disorientation was nowhere near as bad, but the effect clearly wasn’t unique to the Ritual.

She dug through her pockets, pulling out some change. Carefully, she crouched and laid a single coin against the wall; better to avoid the noise from dropping it. If this was the Spiral, she wouldn’t  bother , would just assume any marker she left would be moved or mirrored across every door or otherwise tampered with, but the Stranger was hopefully just different enough to  let her mark out a quick escape. She continued through the twisting hallways, far more than the museum ever could have h el d originally  and all lined with the ephemera of  a backstage , laying down coins at regular intervals.

The first thing she encountered looked nearly like a woman, only her face seemed to stretch too tight over her skull, and she was given away by the thick black stitches  at the back of her neck.  The fight wasn’t worthy of the term, and the body was easily stashed in a laundry cart full of costumes. Daisy doubted the Stranger’s avatars were attached enough to their bodily integrity to be worth risking her  opponent raising an alarm  just so she could interrogate her. Other than that, the journey was disconcertingly peaceful.

She assumed she knew where everyone was when she turned a corner and heard the low chatter of voices, lead by Nikola Orsinov’s grating cadence. She was about to tur n, continue on her way and be grateful for whatever distraction kept them from interfering with her search when, amongst the murmur, her ears picked out an all too familiar groan.

Her veins burned as she crept to peer into the room the noises came from, luckily left ajar. She couldn’t spot Jon at first, subsumed as he was by the mass of uncanny bodies, but he was  _there_ .

He looked worse than she’d hoped, but not as bad as she’d feared (not skinned not bleeding not  _dead_ ).  His arms and legs were restrained by the bulky deliverymen at either end of the crowd, but he didn’t seem to be struggling. He just hung there, limp, eyes wide and glassy as the members of the Circus rubbed lotion into his body, his face,  even his  _scalp_ . The only thing on his body besides lotion and Strange hands was  a constellation of annotations, some just circling his larger scars and charting potential paths around them, others clearly a surgeon’s dotted guidelines. Her stomach  ch urned.

She wanted to barge in, to tear everything in that room apart, but she couldn’t. Jon was in the middle of them, they could drop him, or start cutting him now, or any number of other things if she attacked while he was helpless (was he even aware of what was happening his eyes were so blank he looked like the Archive) and they were outnumbered.

Eventually, the crowd started to disperse, and she had to dive behind a stuffed costume rack (don’t think about what it’s made of don’t think about how it could have been Jon) to avoid discovery. Breekon, Hope, and Orsinov stayed longer, presumably resecuring Jon in whatever way they’d been keeping him.  What fragments of Orsinov’s commentary she could parse made her want to hit something. Preferably Orsinov. She talked about him like he was  _parts_ , like his flesh and bone were just the inconvenient dress form for her  _frock_ .  Daisy had a brief and frantic thought that she’d never considered  how the Stranger might bleed into the Flesh, before.

Finally,  _finally_ Orsinov and the deliverymen left. Jon had been mostly silent thus far, only letting out one of the groans that had  alerted her when he was handled particularly roughly or objectionably, but now she could hear  tiny hitching sobs. 

She crept inside, trying not to look at the waxworks. Hopefully they  were the normal kind, not able to report seeing her.  In addition to them, the room had three doors, apparently somewhat centrally located to the Circus’ operations, making it impossible to avoid putting her back to a potential threat.

She’d almost thought the thing  encasing Jon was  more  wax, at first, before she got close enough to make out more detail in the dim light. Nothing but his head was visible outside of  a large, thick blanket  wrapped in rope .  At least he probably didn’t have rope-burn, though she could see him sweating already.

She stepped slowly into his eyeline, keeping her hands visible and empty (for now), hoping he wouldn’t make a noise and draw back Orsinov’s attention. He just stared emptily (like when his mind had been pushed out like when he was good as dead she didn’t save him she killed him), tearily, even as she came closer.

“Jon,” she whispered, laying a hand on his shoulder. He flinched at the touch and a tiny bit of life leaked back into his eyes- just enough to glare. She could have laughed with delight. Instead, she worked the knot of the gag.

He gave a hacking, dry cough that made her want to cover his mouth and keep him quiet when it fell loose. Was he dehydrated, as well? She should have thought to bring food and water along. “Take off her face.”

“What?” Jon tensed when she paced  around him. She eyed the chair and blanket arrangement, pulling out a knife once he couldn’t see her anymore and looking for a good place to start cutting the ropes.

“I know they’re not coming. You don’t have to mock me by pretending to be her.” She knelt, and what she could see of his neck muscled tensed as he seemed to realize something. “You didn’t- She didn’t- It  _can’t_ be- It’s not her real face?” His chest heaved. She let herself feel distantly touched that he would be upset to see her replaced by the Stranger. Though he would probably be equally upset if it was anyone else he knew.

“It’s really me, Jon,” she murmured. As the first of the ropes fell, it became clear that there was one set fastening him to the chair and another securing the duvet. She swore.

“Stop it,” his voice was getting louder, almost dangerously loud. She tried to hush him. “It’s been too long, she’s not coming. Or she-  she came and you took her face. You’re  _not_ Daisy.”

“ I am, I promise. I’m sorry it took so long, I’m  _so_ sorry! Ask me if you don’t believe it’s me!” She needed him to keep his voice down.

A creaky, bitter laugh. “I’m not going to- to give you an excuse- I’m still rather attached to my tongue, thanks.” He tilted his chin up. “Orsinov! Stop it, I don’t want to play games.”

She swore again, hacking at the ropes keeping him on the chair as quickly as she could, slashing the fabric of the duvet in the process. That was definitely loud enough to carry; they were out of time.

Orsinov’s clicking steps came into the room, frown painted on her face as she said, “Who took the Archivist’s gag off?” For a moment, everything seemed to freeze as Daisy looked at Orsinov and Orsinov… did whatever she did instead of looking... at Daisy. Then, the last rope on the chair fell, and Daisy grabbed Jon, remaining ropes, duvet, and all. Orsinov shrieked in rage. Daisy ran.

She prayed to whoever or whatever might be listening that the glinting coins she followed wouldn’t lea d her astray. As soon as she spotted a wheeled laundry cart (not the one she’d put the thing she killed in) she dumped Jon inside and started pushing, freeing one hand to wield her gun.  She resisted the urge to shoot at  anything but a sure hit \- there wouldn’t be a chance to reload. Jon seemed too stunned to make a sound,  too low in the cart to see much of what was happening. Hopefully he would stay there; it was also out of her line of fire.

Finally, after replacing her gun with a much-less-effective knife, and then losing three knives  in a row  after she couldn’t yank them out of plastic bodies without slowing down, she skidded around a corner and saw a door that looked familiar, the coin she’d left right where she remembered. Her spine popped as she scooped Jon into her arms and opened the door-

-to blessed air and sunlight. She heaved a deep breath and sprinted for the car. Nearly there.

The Circus still on their heels, she ended up half-tossing Jon into the car through the driver’s side door. He landed more or less on the center console, wedged diagonally between the seats. Wincing and hissing an apology, she pushed him so he fell into the backseat footwell. He never made a sound.

She threw the car into gear just in time for Orsinov to slam a fist against her window, cracking the glass. Plastic crunched under the wheels as she made for the road. Unfortunately, none of it was Orsinov’s.


	8. Jon

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jon is finally released from the Evil Blanket Burrito

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this one fought me like nothing else, i swear

He stopped trying to count the days, when he realized they weren’t coming. The Circus’ grasping, groping hands still appeared (probably) like clockwork (and some of them were) but he stopped trying to keep track of how many times they’d come. They were always there, always _touching_ him. They were never there, and the emptiness was almost enough to make him long for their return.

Sometimes, part of him came back. A  burst of anger or desperate animal fear that made him jerk in their grasp until his shoulder was wrenched, or brought the tears back as he realized he  _deserved_ to be left here. What was the point of coming to save someone who couldn’t manage to want to save himself? He didn’t want to be here, didn’t want to  _die_ , but when he realized he couldn’t squirm out of his bindings,  or do anything else  without bringing the end on faster, more painfully, he’d given up. He’d stopped looking for another way out. He might as well have walked in here and offered himself up. He was pathetic.

They probably hadn’t come because they’d realized he’d be like this, even before he had. They’d remembered how he’d accepted that no one would take him away from Daisy and let her do whatever she wanted to him instead of trying to fight her alone. Daisy had realized that whatever her Jon, who she’d cared for so much ( _he pulled me out of hell_ , what did that mean he wasn’t brave like that had never been brave), had been, Jon wasn’t him. Whatever had sparked _that_ Jon into heroic rescue had sputtered and _died_ in him. And maybe that was why he deserved to die.

-

He assumed Daisy’s appearance, after so long, was the sign that he’d finally snapped. If he was lucky, maybe his mind would deteriorate enough that he wouldn’t feel it, when the end came. The miserably poetic part of him that he would deny existed until and beyond that end wished, if he had to hallucinate, that it was Martin. It would  have been good to see him again.  Not that seeing Daisy wasn’t nice.

When the figment  touched him, he realized he wasn’t that crazy  just yet. Rage bubbled within him, cutting through the blank apathy he’d felt for days.  How  _dare_ they, how dare they use her face and her voice like this! As if the Stranger could ever create anything but a cheap copy!

...Unless it wasn’t a copy.

Daisy had always seemed so strong, so indestructible, especially since she’d told them she’d come from the future, the idea that she knew what would happen and what to do about it implicit.  But no one was perfect. Was i t possible he  _hadn’t_ been abandoned, that while he’d been sitting here healthy and whole (and  _empty_ ) and bemoaning his fate she’d come for him after all, and they’d taken her  _face_ for it? He would have vomited if there was anything at all in his stomach.  First Sasha, now Daisy. His assistants trapped, Georgie’s trauma dredged up after years and years, Martin trapped in his flat for weeks, Tim scarred  and bitter . He poisoned everything he touched, and now it had come for Daisy, too.

His ears buzzed, and he knew he was yelling, finally venting the anger that had bubbled under the numbness, but he was barely aware of what. He was so _sick_ of being lied to, of being manipulated and fooled! It wouldn’t work this time, he wouldn’t give them the satisfaction!

Being hefted from seated upright to held horizontally made his head spin even more, worsened by the empty pit in his stomach, and by the time the world straightened out a bit he wasn’t being held anymore, lying in something full of fabric and _skin_ , with wheels that rattled beneath him.

Oh. It was time. They were going to skin him, and they were going to have the thing wearing Daisy’s face do it. He hadn’t thought Nikola would have it in her to keep it quiet, when the day finally came, but he supposed the surprise and hurt at what had happened to Daisy would feed the Stranger better than his anticipation could.

He squeezed his eyes shut, trying to block as much out as he could- if he could forget the hunger, the hurt, the slimy lotion, the world, maybe he could insulate himself from at least some of the pain, as well. He tried to think of better memories: the things he wished he’d realized in time to tell Martin; Georgie and The Admiral; Sasha (only not really, not her true face) and Tim happy back in Research before everything; the moments at movie night where he wasn’t worried or scared, just held close by people who cared about him. He bit his lip; he didn’t want to give them the satisfaction of crying, either.

He was shocked out of his determined contemplation by the feeling of being lifted up and out at the same time he was hit with a rush of fresh air and sunlight. Why would they do this outside? There was no _reason…_

He slid his eyes sideways, looking up at the thing carrying him. There were no seams or stitches, like he’d seen on other members of the Circus. The NotSasha hadn’t had them, either, but she’d confessed nearly as soon as he realized what she was and broke the table. And the statements had seemed to conclude that there was only one NotThem, anyway. The face above him seemed to fit, was trickling sweat and grimacing in determination as they rocketed away from the wax museum.

His veins went cold, frozen realization reaching even his senseless extremities. If it  _was_ Daisy, really Daisy, and he’d been wrong again, jumped to idiotic conclusions  _again…_ He could hear pursuit, now  that he was paying attention , yelling and clattering behind them. If this was the rescue he’d given up on, here at last,  _he’d_ brought their pursuers down on them with his misapprehensions and shouting. If they  _did_ catch them, if this was the  last look he’d get at the sky for the rest of his short and miserable life,  if they killed Daisy  _now_ , it would be even more his fault than if she’d been apprehended before ever reaching him. His insides seemed to well up in guilty fear. Why couldn’t he do  _anything_ right?

Any doubts he had that it really was Daisy were dismissed when she tossed him into a car. A familiar car, _her_ car. He only had a moment’s glance at the windshield, the spare torch she kept hanging from the rear mirror, the scratched up console buttons, before he was pushed back, but it was enough.

The stupid duvet cushioned his fall, kept it from hurting like it should. Like he deserved. With its bulk around him, he ended up wedged in the footwell, between the seats, unable to shift or move. Unable to glance up and back when something hit one of the windows, hard, sending a  shivering wave of terror through him. 

It also kept him from being tossed about like he’d been in Breekon and Hope’s van, or the first time he’d been thrown into this car bound and helpless. Small mercies.

He didn’t know what the tears were for, when they came. Maybe everything, the whole error-filled sum of the life that had brought him here.

Daisy was surely angry with him, for bringing the Circus down on them, risking her life and their escape, and for shutting her out before that, but at least she wouldn’t hurt him like the Circus. Whatever she did to him now, if she’d come for him Jon felt certain it meant she wanted him... at least alive.

Maybe the long wait in captivity was punishment enough.  That made sense, actually. She’d been angry with him, rejecting everything she’d tried to do for him and tattling to Martin, so she’d left him with the Circus to stew so he’d be properly gracious when she brought him back.  And instead he’d almost gotten her caught-  _killed_ \- as well, and he had no idea how to make it up to her, how to prove he’d learned better and he would do what she wanted, now. That she didn’t have to hurt him any more.  That was probably why he was here,  like this, in the back instead of untied or  propped in the passenger seat. Maybe he was doomed to repeat the same handful of grim scenarios until one of them finally killed him. Snatched from the grasp of another avatar by Daisy and tied up in her car, completely vulnerable to anything she might decide to do to him.  Glimpses of freedom crushed when he was inevitably trapped again. Daisy, as she was now, was hardly his cruelest captor. He should consider himself lucky.

He had to convince her he was worth the effort. He wasn’t, couldn’t be, the person she  _actually_ liked, who had saved her from whatever unknown horrors, but he could at least keep her from finding out how thoroughly he’d given up.  How weak and wretched he actually was.  Even after realizing rescue wasn’t coming (only it had he was just a faithless fool he remembered the look she’d given him when she realized he didn’t trust her he couldn’t do that to her again), that escape was his only option, what had he done?  Nothing.  J ust gone limp and compliant  and accepted his fate .  Let layers of emptiness cushion the anger and the urge to meet humiliation with  resistance , because it took some of the fear as well and he was a coward.  Daisy didn’t want the coward. She wanted whatever Jon she’d known, the one who’d  followed her unto undescribed horrors,  been through something that made him impossible for the Jon that he  _ was _ to ever live up to.

For however long he’d been gone, he’d known exactly what Nikola wanted from him. In the short and long term. Now, he was adrift. The consequences of failure might be just as dire, but he didn’t know where to even start guessing what Daisy wanted from him now. He couldn’t reconcile the clingy, protective Daisy who had kept him in her flat and the tentative, soft Daisy who had tried so hard to make him feel at ease in building a friendship  and the Daisy who had left him with the Circus for so long.  Was the second Daisy a lie, just waiting for something like this to happen so he’d realize how pitiful his attempts at independence were and come crawling back? Or had it been real until he’d shown just how poor his judgment was by  turning up at the storage locker and immediately followed  that up with shutting her out entirely?

He was so lost in thought, so preoccupied trying to work out what he had to do to get back in Daisy’s good graces, that he didn’t notice the car finally stopping or Daisy getting out. He only realized anything had changed at all when the door closer to his feet opened, making him jerk back and let out an involuntary whimper of surprise. He heard an intake of breath.

“It’s just me, Jon. It’s Daisy, it’s me, I’m  _ myself _ and I just want to help.” That was right, Daisy knew what was best for him, had all the knowledge of a future she was trying to protect him from, and he needed to stop getting in her way and being such a bullheaded idiot.  He couldn’t move enough to help as she gently turned him over and pulled him into a sitting position, so he stayed limp under her hands.

She gave him a little smile when he stayed sitting without support (he was such a disgraceful excuse for an Archivist he needed praise for achievements a literal infant would scoff at) but it fell away almost instantly when she saw the tear tracks running down his face. He ducked his head, trying to wipe them away. “I’m sorry!” The apology was undermined by the hiccuping breath that followed immediately after.

“Jon.” It took everything in him not to shrink from the feather light touch of her hand at his shoulder. He looked up, keeping his head bowed submissively. “You don’t have anything to be sorry for. I won’t let anything hurt you, alright? You’re safe, now,  but… it’s alright if you need to cry anyway. ” It didn’t escape his notice that she didn’t say anything about hurting him herself.

The thought unfortunately coincided with her pulling a knife from her pocket and snapping it open. He winced. The hand squeezed his shoulder the tiniest bit- or maybe not, maybe it was meant as a warning pinch but the layers of duvet immobilizing him cushioned it- before withdrawing. “I know, I’m sorry, it’s just for the ropes. Tell me if anything I do hurts, okay?”

He nodded, not taking his eyes off the knife as she slipped it under the first rope and started sawing away. He held as still as he could, not wanting the blade to slip.

“Are you hurt at all?” Daisy asked.

He tried to swallow, clear his throat, so the words would be intelligible, but without the rush of panic and rage pushing them out they came to him scratchy and ragged. “Not really.”

She glanced up from her work to give him a wry look. “That’s not a no.”

He pulled his shoulders tight. “It’s nothing. The blanket prevented rope burn,  and the bruises aren’t bad.” Nikola had been  concerned that any damage would show when they took his skin, though that hadn’t prevented a few experiments to see what kinds of colors she could make him turn, in case that  was more aesthetically pleasing . But he hardly felt those anymore, and technically he couldn’t tell her whether or not his wrenched shoulders and knees were as bad as they sometimes felt until he was able to move freely, so it wasn’t a lie (he shouldn’t lie to Daisy she’d be angry he was  _ trying _ ). S he probably didn’t want to hear that,  anyway . She wanted to know if anything was going to make him drop dead in the  imminent future, not about his achy joints and bruises. 

Her lips still pulled into a little frown before smoothing into something more neutral. “And the last time you ate? Or had anything to drink?”

They’d poured something unidentifiable, mostly liquid, and  _ probably _ edible down his throat every so often,  and tepid water slightly more often than that,  but he hadn’t really kept track. He shrugged.  Long enough ago to be  _ starving _ .

She hummed. As more of the ropes fell, feeling was starting to return to his lower extremities, and that hurt, too, but there was nothing to be done but sit it out. “Are you going to be able to walk, once this is all off?”

He nodded. “They let me… They let me walk to the loo and back, sometimes.” Had laughed at how he stumbled and blushed as he was paraded before them all,  exposed and  feeling all the anxiety and terror of his patron with none of the power that might  help  save him. But his legs still worked,  more or less .

“Okay. Okay, that’s good.” She seemed to be saying it more to herself than him, so he didn’t answer. It was annoying when he talked. Distracting. It was safer to remain silent.

Daisy’s hands hovered as the  last of the ropes fel l . Jon didn’t move until she realized his eyes had never left the knife and put it away. Then he wormed one arm out of the cocoon, but laid it across his lap, not sure what to do with it. Daisy had her hands out like she was trying to coax a wild animal.

He stared down at his arm, turning it slightly to look at how the scars warped around his flesh, examining the marks tracing around them, dotting his skin into pattern pieces. “Why did you come?”

He flinched, ducked his head further into his chest. He wasn’t supposed to ask questions, she. still had the knife, it was just in her pocket, he was sorry! He bit his lip. Could he clench his jaw hard enough to keep her from prying it open and taking his tongue? Was fighting worth the effort? Or… no, that wasn’t Daisy, it was the Circus. Wasn’t it? He felt like he had a cold coming on in addition to everything else, like he couldn’t _think_. Everything was too _much_ , he wanted it to _stop_.

A hand touched his bare shoulder and he  recoiled, but almost instantly regretted it .  It hadn’t been like the plastic or wood or skinned flesh of the Circus. It had almost been nice,  a momentary pinpoint of warmth  reminding him he wasn’t alone . “Of course I came. I’m so sorry you had to wait, but I would never leave you there, Jon. I promise.”

Her voice sounded tight. Was she angry with him? “I’m sorry! I’m  _ sorry _ , Daisy!” He squeezed his eyes shut.  He wasn’t quite sure what he was apologizing for  (please don’t hurt him he was sorry he’d fix it if she just gave him a chance) , doubting her  or leaving her  or asking questions or talking in the first place. Maybe just existing. “ I won’t- just tell me what I did wrong, and I’ll never do it again!” He’d stopped crying, but now his chest was starting to heave the beginnings of sobs again. How did he even have it in him to keep making such a miserable spectacle of himself?

“Jon. Jon!” Her hand hovered an inch away from bare skin. In for a penny, in for a pound; he pressed his shoulder into it, and that seemed to be the only permission Daisy needed to gather him into her arms, practically pulling him into her lap. He buried his face into the crook of her neck, biting his lip to keep his mouth shut, to keep his cries from escaping. “You didn’t do anything wrong. I’m so, so sorry that you had to wait like that, but it wasn’t because of _anything_ you did.” It was nice, nicer than he deserved, being surrounded and gently held in warm arms.

“I didn’t f-fight. I didn’t escape. I just l-let them-” even as he tried to stutter out his confession, he wrapped his free arm around her neck. It just felt so  _ good _ , to have the warmth of something living and human besides himself.

“It’s not your fault. It’s not your fault they took you, and you did just what you needed to do to be alive for me to come get. I’m sorry  you had to wait so long. I came as soon as I knew, and it was my fault it wasn’t sooner. Elias had me out, and I didn’t have my phone, and I didn’t check it as soon as I was back. It was just bad luck, I’m not mad, I was never mad at you. If it’s anyone’s fault it’s mine.”

He shook his head into her neck. He was overwhelmed by the feeling that  _ bad luck _ was  _ worse _ , a thousand times worse than it being his fault. If it was his fault, he could change, keep it from happening again. “No,” he whined, “no! I can fix it! It  _ has _ to be me, I’ll be better, I promise!”

He heard Daisy take a deep breath. It sounded shaky. “Why does it have to be you?”

“Because,” he was interrupted by a wavering, inarticulate noise in his throat, just another part of himself out of his control, but he had to answer her, she deserved an answer after putting up with him and trying to meet him halfway and rescuing him even after he’d thrown it back in her face, “because if it’s me I can change! It doesn’t have to happen again if it’s my fault!” How was he supposed to communicate the yawning terror of the thought that the world was just random, that bad things could continue to happen to him no matter what he did? It was better, if Prentiss happened because of his inattentiveness, if Sasha was down to the same. If Leitner died because he couldn’t stop himself from leaving for a _cigarette_ , and being trapped in Daisy’s flat was because he misunderstood things and made assumptions and never communicated with his ~~friends~~ assistants. If it was his fault he could atone for the bad things in the past, make himself worthy of good- or at least _better-_ ones in the future. The thought that it was out of his control made him feel like a fly in a web, wrapped up and waiting to be devoured, his struggles only bringing unpredictable calamity closer.

“I’m sorry,” Daisy whispered into his hair, “I’ll do everything I can to keep you safe, I promise. I won’t let this happen again. It’s not your fault.” He moaned, and she rocked him through his tears and existential terror, whispering comforts all the while.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ok so! not actually the last chapter! forget the old chapter estimate, it was garbage apparently! (ignore the fact that i have no idea if the new chapter estimate is any better)
> 
> yes, this is a day later than i was aiming for. it seems i was over optimistic lol. with the semester ending, i don't think i can _promise_ an actual regular schedule. I'm still aiming for every day to every other day, but the best i can guarantee is that i'm gonna finish this monster before christmas!
> 
> last point of business: thank you so, so much to everyone who's commented, on this or either of the previous parts. i suck at responding, but i do read them all, over and over. i mean it very literally when i say this would not exist without those comments. "you're only as sick as your secrets" was supposed to be a standalone, and now this series is over 40k and counting. y'all basically tricked me into doing nanowrimo, and everything past those first four chapters exists because of your comments and reactions. i love y'all, thanks for coming with me on this wild ride <3


	9. Daisy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> it's my fanfic and i can make jon statement sick if i want!

Daisy bit her lip and felt the pressure of tears behind her own eyes as Jon shuddered in her arms. She’d expected anger or annoyance at the delay in rescue, had _expected_ he _might_ have started to worry no one was coming, but she hadn’t thought he would have given up on them to the point he had to ask _why she’d come at all_. She didn’t know what to do, so she muttered anything that came to mind into Jon’s hair. “They missed you, they’ve been looking, I’ll always come looking, you’re alright, I’ve got you.”

She didn’t know what to do. How long could she comfort Jon without the Circus catching up to them? She’d waited until she was certain they’d lost them before stopping, added nearly an hour of distance between them and London, but the last thing Jon needed was another encounter with the Stranger. How did she let go of him without Jon taking it as a rejection or abandonment? How could she keep him safe when so much of the world really did seem to be out to get him?

He felt so small in her arms, with a trembling besides the shaking sobs constantly wracking his muscles. She could count his ribs, if she wanted (and then did, needed to make sure the number remained the same as it should be). She didn’t want to be the first one to let go, but the longer they spent there the greater the risk to Jon’s physical well-being. She wasn’t good at the emotional stuff, that was what she had Basira and Jon had Martin for.

She kept herself from physically breathing a sigh of relief when Jon put an end to her worrying, leaning back so he could look her in the face and smearing the tears from his eyes. “Sorry.” He looked terrible, the dark circles under his eyes seeming to have gotten worse as they sat there and his eyes themselves bleary and unfocused.

“You don’t have anything to apologize for,” she reminded him again. At least that was a familiar line, uttered uncountable times after the Change, an unending, fruitless effort to convince Jon that it wasn’t his fault. She wondered sometimes if that guilt was why nothing they did had kept him with them. If he’d given in to the Archive, as much as been taken by it, because on some level he thought he deserved it.

“Sorry,” he whispered again, and cringed. He was shivering, like he was about to shatter into pieces. She gave him a watery smile. Her natural inclination was to hide the evidence of her own handful of tears, but she thought Jon might feel better, knowing he wasn’t the only one affected.

“Will you be okay if I go for a second? I think I have some spare clothes in the boot.” He nodded, but his free hand clenched in the duvet like it was the only thing keeping him anchored to the planet. She’d be fast.

She managed to turn up some joggers, a pair of clean socks, and a less-than-fresh t-shirt. It would have to do for now; the quicker they started driving again, the sooner she’d have Jon back to the Institute, and he could shower and change into his own clothes. She hustled back around the car, trying not to feel like a cat dragging home a dead mouse as she presented Jon with her finds and turned so he could get dressed with some modicum of privacy.

Jon’s cheeks were flushed when he climbed awkwardly out of the back seat and made his way on swaying legs to the passenger door. On impulse, Daisy flitted close and pressed a hand to his forehead. Jon’s eyes fluttered shut, and he leaned forward into the touch, but he was too warm, a layer of sweat resting cold on his heated brow. “You’re running a fever.”

She bit back a curse as pieces clicked together. Well over a week hidden from Beholding, without statements; of course it would start drawing everything it could from him the moment he was free.

Jon seemed to reach the same conclusion. “I haven’t- statements.” He shook his head as though trying to clear it, then brought his hands to his temples. “I didn’t have any while… so it’s making me ill.” Daisy hummed and nodded, guiding him into the car and making sure he fastened his seatbelt. When she took her hand away from his shoulder he leaned after, chasing the touch.

She shot off a quick text to Basira, so she could let the others know Jon was fine and when to expect them back, and then set to getting them back to London as quickly as she could without getting pulled over. On her way to get Jon, she’d planned to either ignore anyone who tried or knock them unconscious as quickly as possible, but Jon would probably find that upsetting, so better not to risk it. She let her left arm rest on the center console, well within reach. Jon seized on the silent offer, grabbing on with both hands and leaning back against the seat to watch her with bleary, half-lidded eyes. There was a pressure there, even as he was only half conscious, but it was different from the general energy of the Institute or the feeling of Elias turning his gaze to her. It would probably still be horrifying to anyone else- and she thought it had been to her as well, before she recognized and got used to it- but there was something about it that was less “someone is watching” and more “ _Jon_ is watching.” She’d missed it.

-

Even going as fast as she could, over the course of the journey Daisy watched Jon start to noticeably decline. She first realized when the feeling of his gaze slipped, and she nearly put the gas pedal through the floor in panic. When she glanced over, unaccountably afraid he would have vanished, despite his continued presence in her periphery and his hands wrapped around hers, it was to see that he’d merely started to doze, slumping inward. By they time they entered the city limits, he was uncomfortably bent to rest his overheated forehead on their joined hands, muttering and cringing every time they hit a bump, shivering all the while. He looked bad enough, pale and flushed all at once, that she started considering finding a pharmacy and buying fever reducers, or giving him a live statement herself- but the reducers wouldn’t fix what was actually wrong with him, and she was unsure she could get him conscious enough for a live statement to count. And nothing had driven his humanity away last time like live statements; she didn’t want to do that to him without permission unless things looked truly mortal. Jon would be fine as soon as they got back to the Institute. He had to be.

When the Institute finally, finally came into view, the work day was nearly over. Daisy thanked her lucky stars they’d mostly managed to avoid rush hour, and parked haphazardly. She gingerly tried to pull her arm from Jon’s hold- it had gone mostly lax, and wasn’t difficult to break- and was horrified when, instead of waking up, straightening and self-consciously trying to apologize or pretend it had never happened, Jon started to quietly cry instead.

She bolted around the car to open Jon’s door, opening it and gently shaking his shoulder. “Jon. We’re back at the Institute. Jon?”

He did sit up at the sound of his name, movements painfully slow. “D’sy?” he rubbed the heel of a hand into his eye, “The… Yes, that’s good.” He stared at a spot just over her shoulder, going vague as he seemed to lose his train of thought. Even seated, he seemed to sway slightly.

Daisy thought of his sock feet and shaky legs and the foyer’s polished floors. “Is it alright if I carry you inside?” It may have been manipulative, but she also wasn’t entirely sure Jon would be cognizant of the question, so she let herself move her hand to wrap around both his shoulders. Jon didn’t answer, but her did lean into her and give a half-happy, half-whiny hum, so she took that as the best permission she was likely to get at this stage. When she leaned over to undo the seatbelt, Jon leaned forward and pressed his face into her stomach, wrapping his arms around her waist.

“Jon,” she stroked his hair with the hand that wasn’t already around his shoulders, stomach tight with the thought that he was only this tactile with her because he was traumatized and barely aware. “I need you to let go.” She moved to try to pull his hands away.

His grip tightened and he sobbed into her shirt. “No! You’re real, don’t leave, I’m sorry!”

She bit her lip. “I’m not going anywhere, I just need you to let go so I can pick you up.” He shook his head, smearing damp across more of her shirt. Her heart ached, but she went for the cheap shot anyway, hoping it would work anywhere near as well on this Jon as it had on the future one. “Martin’s waiting inside. I need you to let go so we can go to Martin.”

He drew back, glancing around. “Martin?”

His grip loosened just enough for her to break free without hurting him, and she scooped him into her arms before he could complain at the loss of contact. “Yep, he’s just inside, waiting for us.” She hoped this wouldn’t be the moment Basira failed her; surely she would have made sure to let the others know when Daisy expected to have Jon back in the Archives.

“Real Martin?” Jon mumbled. Daisy didn’t answer, too focused on trying to move quickly without jostling him, glaring at anyone who as much as glanced their way. “I want real Martin, not a fake Martin like there was a fake Sasha. Only I don’t remember real Sasha, so I suppose I wouldn’t be able to tell.”

As she reached the bottom of the stairs, she realized with annoyance that she wouldn’t be able to open the heavy Archives door without putting Jon down. She kicked the bottom of the door twice in succession, hoping that would be enough to get someone to let her in. “Daisy,” Jon flinched and whined up at her, “You’ll tell me if it’s a fake Martin?”

“I promise it’s really Martin,” she said, as the man in question cautiously opened the door, one hand wielding a corkscrew (why) like a weapon. He lowered it when he saw them, but then stood frozen, eyes fixed on Jon and mouth agape. “Move,” Daisy demanded. “He needs a statement, he won’t look quite so bad after.”

“A statement,” Jon muttered absently. “Yes, I should do a statement. Elias doesn’t like me getting behind. It’s a tremendous responsibility, being Head Archivist. Don’t tell anyone, but I don’t think I’m entirely qualified.”

Daisy hurried into his office, setting Jon down on his chair (thankful he didn’t immediately slide out of it like a liquid) and digging through the papers on his desk until she found a legitimate statement. A light of awareness came back into Jon’s muzzy expression as she pressed it into his hands, but it didn’t look quite like _Jon_. It made her sick. A tape recorder clicked on somewhere in the room, and Jon started to read.

Martin still hovered at the doorway, looking ready to say something. Daisy darted over, pressing a hand over his mouth and marching him back until they were out of the office, still able to see and hear Jon but far enough not to interfere with his recording. He looked furious, but did have the presence of mind to keep his voice down when she withdrew her hand. “The hell are you thinking, making him work when he looks like _that_?”

Basira appeared at her side, giving her a brief hug and ignoring Martin’s outrage. “Glad to have you back safe.”

“Glad to be back.” She pressed a kiss to the top of her partner’s head before letting her get back to whatever she had been occupying herself with and directing her own attention to Martin.

He still looked like a man who had had too much worry and not enough sleep, but he was at least showered and wearing clean clothes, and he didn’t look quite as manic as he had that morning. His face was turning a worrying shade of red, anger at being dismissed and ignored compounding with his concern and outrage on Jon’s behalf. “It’s not about _work,”_ she sighed, “did he tell you he’s dependent on the statements now? Go too long without one, and he starts getting sick.”

Some of the anger edged off Martin’s face. “...and the Circus had him for ages.” He shot a look over to Jon, whose spine gone straight and expression strange the way they always did when he was recording, but with neither concealing his condition, even as it started to improve. “Has he been sick like _that_ the whole time they had him?” He sounded close to tears.

“No,” she couldn’t help but sigh again, the worry and anger and exertion starting to catch up with her, “It started to hit him a bit after I got him out. Something to do with the same reason Elias hasn’t been able to see him, if I had to guess.”

Martin nodded, and made to move back to the office, but she grabbed him. “Wait. He’s barely had anything to eat or drink over the past few days. He’ll want a shower as soon as he’s himself, they’ve been covering him in lotion so they could use his skin for the Unknowing. He was pretty touchy feely with me, as long as he initiated it or saw it coming ahead of time. He might have some strained joints I couldn’t get him to fess up to, but other than that it’s just bruises and not being allowed to move much for a week. If you can convince him to stay home from work, make sure you take some statements or let one of the others know so they can bring you some. Tea would probably be a good start, both in terms of hydration and convincing him you haven’t been replaced.” She spun Martin around and gave him a slight push toward the break room. He glared at her, but went, walking at an odd angle so he could keep Jon in view. She didn’t point it out as she moved to Basira’s desk, doing the same. She didn't want to think about how she'd listed out all of Jon's needs and reactions like she was never going to see him again. Handed over all her notes on "the care and keeping of Jonathan Sims" like she wouldn't need them anymore. She hoped he would let her see him again, someday. Martin knew more about taking care of him, anyway. And she shouldn't be doing it; she was supposed to stop thinking of Jon like that, supposed to remember that he was a grown man capable to taking care of himself and making his own decisions, supposed to stop overriding him because she thought she knew what was best for him. It was just hard, when he'd been so small and sad and scared in her arms.

She slumped down into a spare chair, resting her forehead against her partner’s shoulder. Basira rested her chin on top of Daisy’s head. “That bad, huh?”

“I don’t want to let him go home with Martin,” she confessed quietly, “I don’t want to let him out of my sight. Last time he went home with Martin he got kidnapped. But as soon as he’s more himself he probably won’t want to see me.” She clenched her hands into fists, letting her nails dig into the flesh of her palms, at the thought. She didn’t want Jon out of her sight, but that wasn’t what Jon wanted.

Basira hummed. “They’ll be fine. I’m proud of you.”

She sat up and gave Basira a look, but bit her cheek and consciously redirected the conversation. “Where are the others?”

“I told them Jon would probably be overwhelmed if we were all here, got them to head home,” she huffed, “I was a bit afraid Tim would tear in with questions about the Circus, if I let him stay. Figured Jon probably needed a bit more of a break than that.”

“Yeah.” Daisy locked her hands into a tight grip on the seat of her chair and tried not to let anything show in her expression as Martin buzzed about the Archives, delivering Jon’s tea and collecting files, and then led him carefully out and up the stairs. Neither of them spared a glance back, Jon leaning heavily on Martin. He looked less sick after the statement, at least. She comforted herself with that.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hmu on tumblr @inklingofadream for general shenanigans and also sometimes random insights into what i'm writing


	10. Jon

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> guess who's back... back again

Jon woke up feeling like he wanted to die. Everything still ached, leaving him with the mental clarity that comes after a bad fever, but none of the sense of renewal. Just enough of his wits to vaguely recall  bits of the previous day and conclude that he’s almost certainly made a fool of himself. The one  upside was that he wasn’t tied to a chair anymore, instead sprawled out on something soft and warm…

...and breathing. He cracked open an eye, wearily curious about whatever horror the day already had in store for him.

It  even  was worse than he  had anticipated. He  could recognize that he was in Martin’s flat, but he was lying on Martin’s bed rather than his own and, more pressingly, on top of  _Martin_ . His assistant (his  _assistant_ , he tried to banish the memory of the things he’d promised himself, in the dim light of the Circus, he would tell the other man if he ever saw him again; they were the idle fantasies of a mind made numb by terror and imminent death, in addition to being entirely inappropriate  for the workplace , so he would just forget they ever happened) was starfished out over the coverlet, head tilted back  so that his breath whistled  out his nose . Jon’s limbs were equally haphazardly draped over his torso, with Jon’s ear pressed to his heart. He performed a maneuver that looked something like a very clumsy, panicked, and quiet backward somersault trying to extricate himself without waking Martin.  As he tumbled to the floor, he spared a moment of gratitude for Martin’s tendency to let his laundry pile up on the floor to cushion clumsy Archivists’ landings.  He straightened himself out, ignoring the complaints of his aching joints, and started for the door as quietly as he could.  He realized he wasn’t wearing his own pajamas, nor the clothes Daisy had lent him; was this  _Martin’s_ shirt?

“Jon?” He hadn’t even made it around the bed when Martin bend his head up at an awkward angle and slitted his eyes open.

“I- Morning, I- sorry, just!” he bolted out of the room before his stuttering could be expected to resolve itself into a valid excuse or apology for the boundaries he’s crossed while not entirely himself. His legs, still weak from underuse, betrayed him as he tried to make a hairpin turn into the kitchen, and he went to his knees in the kind of slow fall that happens to overstrained muscles pushed too far. It was at least quiet.

Clutching the wall and trying to bring himself back to standing on legs that seemed to be made of taffy, stiff and sturdy one second and gooey and pliable the next, he realized why he’d absentmindedly gone for the kitchen (where Martin might be at any second he could hear him lumbering out of bed he was going to  _die_ of embarrassment) rather than his room. A battered box, recognizable as one of the types the Archives used, was set carefully on the table. Jon wondered hysterically if Martin had put it here because he knew statements fed him nearly as much as food, and were possibly more essential (he’d never been a big eater, told himself it wouldn’t that much of a loss if the Archiv ist someday stole food from him entirely). 

He staggered to the box, grabbing two or three files at random (they were all real, he didn’t know how he knew  without looking but he  _knew_ ) and making for his room as quickly as he could without losing his legs again. Martin wouldn’t bother him there, would respect the closed door; he could hide, record his statements, and lick his wounds for a bit before having to face the other man. He heard Martin’s door click open  right as he pulled his own shut, just in time.

Safe behind his locked door (as safe as he ever could be) Jon found himself sinking to the ground, pressing his back to the door  and ignoring the pang of pressure on the bruises there . The hand holding the statement files was shaking, and he realized distantly that he didn’t recall whether there was a recorder here.  He’d been trying not to bring  statements into Martin’s flat,  or record there,  remembering how uncomfortable they’d made Georgie.  The shaking hand went  lax , and the files slid to the floor.

He realized his hand wasn’t the only thing shaking as though the rattling knees and shuddering shoulders were happening to someone else. Surely it couldn’t be his body that moved, unrestrained and aimless. He brought his hands up to cover his ears, it was too  _loud_ (only there wasn’t any noise, the loud was in his head he couldn’t  _think straight_ ).  He had just the presence of mind to crawl closer to the bed and bury his face in the dangling blankets, muffling any sound, before great shaking sobs started to rip their way from his throat.

He wasn’t even sure what he was crying about. When he tried to trace his emotions back over the past few minutes, the awkward embarrassment of the situation with Martin bled into that of being the last one picked for teams in school shifted to the humiliation of having his body poked and prodded, the slightest oddity of skin and muscle pointed out and criticized and  _lotioned,_ and he was crying about all of it, his whole life. One long line of humiliation after humiliation, most of them brought on himself- why was he allowed  _out_ , maybe this was what Daisy had actually been protecting him from, the realization that he’d never conducted himself with the dignity he aimed for so desperately  _once_ in the entire span of his life. Every thought seemed to redirect onto another memory of shame,  dredged from  an unending supply. 

He startled at a knock, then pressed his face deeper into the bedding. “Jon?” Martin sounded genuinely worried through the door (didn’t he know Jon wasn’t worth it didn’t he  _realize_ ). “I understand if you don’t want to talk right now, but I’m here if you want to. And I made tea. I’ll just… set it outside the door, and you can grab it when you feel like it.” He shuddered as the anxiously shifting shadow moved away from the door, leaving him alone again (alone alone he was always alone).

Eventually, the sobs faded into breaths that didn’t come quite right, skipping like a  scratched  CD whenever he tried to inhale,  but better than the crying . He extracted himself from the comforting embrace of the bedding (at least there he didn’t have to be seen but he was always Seen couldn’t get away) and undid the lock just long enough to slip his arm out the door and pull the mug of tea inside. If Martin noticed, he didn’t say anything.

Gripping the mug in one hand,  deliberately ignoring the way the negligible weight made his atrophied muscles tremble with effort and gulping down its lukewarm contents as though his life depended on it, he rummaged around until he turned up a tape recorder. He settled, and dragged his files close, acutely aware of the magnetic hunger that invaded his awareness the moment he gave it the slightest attention (monster just another thing to be ashamed of).

He didn’t think he’d ever recorded three proper statements one after another like that; maybe when he’d finally realized the truth about (Not)Sasha, when he’d been so absorbed in frantic research he’d barely noticed the strain. The hopeful part of him reasoned that he had to do more to sate the hunger because of his time starving (physically and metaphysically) with the Circus; the cynic took it as another sign of his inhumanity.

He crept out of his room to shower- he had a faint memory of Martin telling him if he wanted to shower in his delirious state he had to sit down, and hovering outside the door waiting for Jon to slip  or faint , but dismissed it as quickly as possible- as though there might be an alarm wired to go off as soon as he opened the door. No sign of Martin, which was probably for the best. Not that he would have noticed, darting from one room to the next as though he were trying to teleport, unless he literally tripped over him.

He stayed in the shower until the hot water ran out, then moved the tap to cold and continued scrubbing under the freezing spray until the heater refilled and he could turn it back to hot. When he finally emerged, clean and wearing his own clothes,  he nearly felt human again. Willing enough, at least, to acknowledge that his meltdown hadn’t been wholly rational, and that not  _everything_ he’d told himself during it was true. Now he just needed real food, human food. He braced himself, it was doubtful he’d make it to the kitchen without having to talk to Martin.

Sure enough, Martin was slumped over the kitchen table poking idly at his phone. He sat up as soon as he spotted Jon. “Jon!”

“Martin.” He looked down, “I was just looking for something… er, that is-”

“You’re hungry!” He let himself relax as Martin took the reins of the conversation. “What do you want, I can make soup, or toast? I don’t know if you remember, but we should probably be careful about anything too heavy to start.” He leapt to his feet, shuffling items around the cabinets. Jon tried not to blush as a memory of whining and crying as Martin told him they probably shouldn’t get chips just yet faintly returned to him.

“I… there’s cereal, I can just…” Martin hovered as Jon poured a bowl of plain cereal and added milk,  graciously not commenting on how he struggled with the carton . He set the bowl next to box of statements, chuckled  grimly to himself. All part of a nutritious breakfast. 

He took a few cautious bites, trying to stave off the feeling that his stomach was going to become an independent entity and devour the rest of him in a fit of rage before steeling himself for further conversation. “I don’t quite… remember… last night. Or much of anything after Daisy untying me… but from what I do remember, I believe I own you an apology, Martin.”

Martin’s head jerked up, and he stared at Jon from his position across the small kitchen, leaning against the one counter. “What? You were sick, Jon. You don’t have to apologize for being sick.”

Jon swallowed. He didn’t know how to pull the reasonable thoughts from those twisted by desperation, but some things seemed obvious. Like the fact that it was not appropriate to collapse asleep on top of one’s work subordinates (even if you were already living with them). “I recognize some boundaries were crossed-  physical and… emotional- when I was… not in my right mind. That’s no excuse, and I’m sorry if I made you uncomfortable. I hope this will not negatively impact our work relationship.”  _Work relationship_ , as though he hadn’t already obliterated any semblance of such a thing making Martin feed and house him, rescue him from Daisy and do all the heavy lifting of the confrontation with the others.  Not to mention the other feelings, the ones he’d been crushing down and ignoring until it  had seemed like his own death was imminent. The knowledge that nothing he could do would get Jon fired was probably the only thing  that kept Martin from reporting him to HR.

“ Jon.” He looked away, unable to stomach the sight of Martin alongside that unbearably gentle tone. “You didn’t do anything wrong.  _I’m_ sorry, for you getting  _kidnapped_ and me not knowing how to help you now!”

He nodded miserably. “And it was inappropriate for me to take advantage of that lack of knowledge to become… overly physical with you.” He should have known better; should have remembered even feverish how much he’d hated contact being forced on  _him_ , and done better by Martin.

“ Do you remember how we ended up there, Jon?”

He didn’t. He tried not to gulp. “No.” What exactly had he done?

“You were upset that I was the only one there. You were asking for Georgie, only I don’t really know Georgie and didn’t know how to contact her to ask her to come, not without taking my eyes off of you for longer than I wanted. And you were asking for Daisy. I… I tried to choose the compromise I thought you would be the least uncomfortable with when you were back to yourself. I’m sorry if I chose wrong.”

He choked down a wave of longing, for Georgie’s safe arms, for the protective line of Daisy’s back pressed against him. Real, human  _people_ . He wanted to bury his face back in Martin’s chest, to revel in his presence and prove he wasn’t a fake or illusion, but kept the impulse tightly leashed. “You were right. Thank you, Martin.”

“ Of course. I just want to help you feel better, Jon.”

He couldn’t fathom why someone as kind as Martin would feel the need to pull from his seemingly bottomless well to grace Jon with gentle touches and reassuring words. He didn’t understand why Martin still treated him so well, despite how awful he’d been to him back in the ir early days in the Archives. He didn’t know what he could do to prove he deserved it (he could never deserve it). All those thoughts and feelings got tangled and wrapped behind his words and he quietly muttered, “ _**Why?”** _

“Because you’re my friend. And because you won’t do it for yourself. And I’m happy being your friend, it’s everything I wanted back when you… weren’t so nice,  when I wanted so badly for you to like me , but taking care of you sometimes I can pretend we’re something more. Just to myself!” Jon’s head snapped up, and he met Martin’s eyes as they widened with the realization of what Jon had done. The words didn’t stop. “I’d help you regardless, but it’s a little sweeter, imagining something romantic. So I probably want it more because of that, but mostly because you’re my friend!”

Jon felt dizzy. He reminded himself that no one was going to hurt him for Asking- this was Martin’s flat, he was  _ safe _ . The only consequence was the emotional fallout. 

“I’m so sorry.” He couldn’t seem to choke out anything else over his own wheezing breaths, couldn’t pour everything he  meant into the words. “Oh my god, Martin, I’m so sorry. I didn’t- I didn’t mean to! I wouldn’t-” He cut himself off.  It didn’t matter. He  _ did. _

“It’s… it’s fine,” Martin wavered. His blush extended from his hairline all the way below the neckline of his jumper. “I just… need a moment. I’m sorry.” 

He needed to say something, something that would take the defeated slump from Martin’s shoulders, something to chase him behind the bedroom door as he nearly slammed it shut. How did one apologize for tearing someone’s deepest  emotional  secrets from them,  _ without even knowing. _

He hovered outside Martin’s room, a reflection of just a few hours ago. He hoped he hadn’t made Martin feel as poorly as Jon himself had, but then, he was rarely that lucky. Grasping for words, what eventually came out was, “I do like you.” Then, realizing that could be taken as an answer to Martin’s comments on their early working relationship, true but less than what he  felt , added  impulsively , “In a romantic way.”

There was a tiny hitch of breath behind the door, then silence. 

What had he been  _ thinking? _ If he hadn’t been intruding on Martin before, he certainly was now. What kind of base manipulation must Martin think this was, forcing  his presence, his illness , then his questions, then his own unwelcome feelings on the man?

He needed… he needed to get out. Martin deserved privacy to put himself together, to deal with the violation of Jon forcing answers from him. Jon needed to be elsewhere. He gathered his things as quickly as he could and all but  ran from the flat.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i really mean it with the chapter count this time!


	11. Daisy

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> oops! all cuddling

Daisy spent a sleepless night trying to grapple with what she wanted and what needed to be done. Letting Jon go with Martin had been the right thing, but that didn’t stop her arms from aching with the desire to hold him close and tight. The phantom soreness in her wrist where his fingerprints had once been bruised on, and where she’d returned the purpled bracelet in kind. She desperately wanted him with her, where she knew he was alright, but she also wanted him to be happy. She wished the desires weren’t counter to each other (that she hadn’t screwed things up and made them so).

The frustrated contemplation and wrestling with her own emotions lasted well into the day. Which was probably why, when a knock sounded at the door and she opened it to find  _ Jon _ on her doorstep, she wondered if she’d fallen asleep without realizing. 

“ What are you  _ doing  _ here?” He had been with Martin, he had been  _ safe _ away from her, why would he be  _ here?  _ She looked over his head, half expecting to see some new enemy  there  ennforcing his presence .

Jon flinched. “I can go, if…” His voice trailed off  as she pulled him inside. Trust him to take her bewilderment in the worst way possible.

“Of  _ course _ I want you here,” she said, forging ahead as best she could. “But  _ why? _ ” Why here, why her, why  _ a _ _ lone _ when she’d  _ just  _ finished rescuing him?

Unexpectedly, Jon blushed. Looking closer, she realized he looked fairly miserable, but in an entirely different fashion to when she’d seen him last. “I didn’t know where else to go.”

Her body jerked, alert. “Did something happen? Is Martin-”

He waved a hand. “Martin’s fine. Physically, at least. But I… He needed me away from him, and… well, Georgie records during the days, so I  didn’t want to go there. And I don’t exactly have many other friends.” He tried to laugh at the end, tried to turn it into a self-deprecating  joke  with a plastic chipper smile . 

“ Why did Martin need you to leave? Did he  _ say _ that?!” If he had, with Jon barely home safe and still injured and vulnerable, she’d grind him into pulp. Where did he get the nerve?!

Jon shook his head, quelling both the thoughts and her rising bloodlust. “No, it just seemed… implied. Like it was the thing to do.”

“Okay… ” She waved a hand at the couch. “Sit?”

She slouched onto the sofa, then pretended to be deeply occupied with the state of her nails as Jon looked to her, to the armchair, and then back to her. Hesitantly, he darted over to the chair, just as she’d expected.

He pulled the weighted blanket from the chairback and zoomed back over to Daisy, nestling himself against her side with the blanket on top of him.  She couldn’t suppress her little sound of surprise.

“Is this alright?” Jon looked up at her, all big eyes and insecurity. His muscles tensed as though to draw away. 

“ S’fine.” She slung an arm around him, the casualness of the gesture belied by how gentle she made sure her actual contact with him was.

Jon took that as a cue to burrow into her more, the pressure nearly matching that of the Buried, only kinder. “You’re real,” he said, soft enough she probably wasn’t meant to hear. She tried to commit every nanosecond to memory, so she’d have something when this was all taken away from her again.

She let him slow his breathing to match hers, ear to her heartbeat, for a moment before picking the conversation back up. “So. Martin?”

Jon turned his face into her chest, all but smothering himself, and said something. It came out as inarticulate noise, but she was fairly sure it was meant to. She patted his back a bit awkwardly. “Is it something he said?”

Jon shook his head, turning a bit so he was audible but keeping his eyes squeezed shut, a blush high on his cheeks. “Something  _ I _ said.”

“...Do you want to tell me what it was?”

“ I told him I like him. Romantically.” Based on Jon’s expression and tone of voice, he may as well have said he’d told Martin how all the worst things the other man feared were about to come true.  Daisy raised an eyebrow. That seemed much too spontaneous and emotionally honest for Jon. He buried his head in his hands as he continued, “But before that I accidentally compelled him.”

Ah.  “What did you ask?”

Jon’s eyes were wide and watery. “I didn’t mean to! It was just… why he cared, why he was helping me.”

“And he said it was because  _ he _ likes  _ you _ . Romantically.” She tried to suppress a slight smirk as she saw the direction this was going.  It was as haphazard and disastrous as most things in their lives tended to be, but she could at least handle this.  It almost felt like a piece clicking into place, things-as-they-should-be manifesting in the past.

Jon sat straight up, leaning away a bit. “How did you know that?!” She loosened her grip, trying not to show her reluctance.

She stared at him for a long moment. She didn’t particularly want to reveal that detail of the future, but she also wasn’t entirely sure how widely known Martin’s crush was at this point… “Doesn’t everyone?”

Jon threw his arms up, waving wildly. “ _ I _ didn’t!”

His face was starting to go  distressingly  red, eyes darting wildly. She decided to change the subject, at least for the moment.  “I wish you’d texted me you were coming, so someone would know to go looking if something happened on the way here.”

Jon’s brows furrowed in confusion, before his face slowly smoothed out in an expression of surprised consternation.  Leave it to him to be so distressed by relationship drama he forgot about his own recent abduction. “...Right.”

Daisy huffed a laugh. “Text Martin so he knows you’re alright.” As Jon’s mouth started to draw into a grimace at the thought of talking to Martin, she amended, “I’ll text Martin.” She didn’t point out how Jon’s fidgeting against her side jarred her arm, resulting in her message to Martin ending up somewhat garbled and typo-laden. 

“ So,” she started, trying to lay her words out in her head as neatly as possible before saying them, “if you like Martin, and Martin likes you, I’m not entirely clear what the problem is.”

Jon’s mouth pulled into a shape of despair. “It’s  _ inappropriate.  _ I’m his boss!”

“But does that matter?” Maybe her perspective was skewed by the knowledge that they’d ended up together before, but it didn’t seem like it to Daisy. Although perhaps she was partially motivated by the memory of how painful Jon’s pining had become for everyone around him, then.  Not as bad as the world ending, but still something she’d prefer not to relive.

Jon’s mouth opened and shut mechanically. “What do you mean?”

She rolled her shoulders. “It’s not like you can fire him. And it’s not like your job has a normal work-life balance anyway.”  Jon muttered something that was probably grudging assent,  slumping back into her . “The compelling thing isn’t great, but it’s Martin. If it was an accident, he’ll probably forgive you. And he’d probably like to be let in on decisions that involve him as much as they do you.”

Jon pressed his forehead into her shoulder. “That’s… reasonable.” He didn’t sound thrilled by it

“So… talk to Martin, and either start dating him or move past it like the professionals I know you can be.” She actually had some doubts about their shared professionalism, but she was fairly certain it wasn’t going to become an issue.  Jon didn’t respond, staying perfectly silent and still against her side. Daisy bit her lip. “You don’t have to do it now, though. Space  _ probably _ isn’t a bad idea.”

“So I can stay here?” he said in nearly a whisper. Daisy hugged him a little tighter.

“Course. Always, for as long as you need.” She was trying to keep her excitement out of her voice,  keep even empathy there instead , but had no idea how well she was succeeding. The last thing she wanted now was to scare him off. Even if it only lasted until he and Martin got their act together  and he was no longer out of options , she wanted to hoard every moment with Jon she could. It was all she could do to keep in mind how lucky she was that he’d felt comfortable coming here like this at all (guiltily glad that he was so close couldn’t forget it was because she’d left him to the Circus it was because he was traumatized not because he trusted her), to keep the image of Jon shuddering and cringing away from her in the tunnels at the forefront of her mind. If she did well, maybe some of this new closeness would stay. Maybe he’d come back to movie nights, bump her shoulder companionably when she came to the Archives.

“ Thanks. Thank you. Thanks,” Jon murmured. They sat there a long time in silence, Daisy’s hand stroking lazy circles on his back as she counted their breaths. If he got uncomfortable or started to panic again, she needed to know so she could pull away.

After an indeterminate amount of time reveling in the rare moment of companionship and serenity, a thought came to her. She chewed it over for a long time, trying to decide how best to phrase it, before she spoke. “Jon.”

He shifted, making a noise that sounded hilariously like a cat being unexpectedly awoken. Daisy choked down a laugh, but she didn’t think it was wholly banished from her expression before Jon tilted his head to stare up at her. He scowled as she carefully continued, “I don’t want to make you uncomfortable. But I’d like to know if you’ve eaten yet today. Or had any statements?”

He let his head fall back into its prior position. She hoped that was a good sign, but reminded herself not to rule it out as an act of fear or defeat. His heartbeat was still slow and steady, though, as he mumbled into her arm, “I had three statements and a bowl of cereal before I left. I don’t want to get sick like that again any more than you  want me to .”

She hummed in her throat. “Do you feel better? If you’re still feeling sick at all, we could run to the Archive s and get more, or I could go and you could stay here, or I could ask Basira to bring some.”

He shook his head as m uch as he could pressed into her side. “I think I’ll need a few more than usual for a bit, sort of catching up, but then hopefully it will go back to normal.” Left unstated was the knowledge that, given more of its Archivist’s time, Beholding might not ever give it back,  might force greater inhumanity on him in trade.  In spite of herself, the thought made Daisy’s hold go a bit tighter.

The silence returned. It reminded her so strongly of the hours they’d spent lying around the Archives together after the coffin, not speaking because there was nothing to say that wouldn’t bring pain. At least things weren’t that bad yet. 


	12. Jon

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> cuddles... kisses... fabric rustles...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so this is done, but 2/3s of it is Not even proofread, bc if i don't post it now i never will. brainspace for writing soft jon? yes. brainspace for anything remotely resembling academia as long as I'm stuck in scholarship appeal limbo? nah. (pray for me lol i need like. 1-3% in a class i biffed it on bc of a dumb mistake and all my problems will disappear)

He still didn’t know what to make of Daisy. He’d half expected that by coming, he’d be resigning himself to things going on as they had before. But instead of manhandling him into whatever she wanted, Daisy was so gentle it almost hurt, pulling back at the slightest indication that he might want her to stop. He could still see the possessive glint in her eye when she looked at him, sometimes- but he could also see her deliberately biting down those impulses.  It  made something settle inside him, just a bit .

She talked him down, seemed to grasp the situation with Martin better than he could explain it, point ed out inconsistencies and bits of illogic he hadn’t even consciously articulated. He’d weighed the odds it was because she knew him well, versus his mind still being that addled from the fever and general social incompetence, before deciding it was a question he didn’t particularly want the answer to.

The part of him that had been starved for real human contact for so long never wanted to leave the couch, where he had the comforting weight of the blanket and Daisy’s arm to one side and the warmth and pulse of her body on the other.  Maybe he’d been onto something, delirious with fever; when he was there voluntarily, Daisy was a surprisingly good cuddler. Maybe she’d had lots of practice, with her Jon.

That was the other thought that kept souring things for him. He was almost hopeful, now, that he might be able to sort things out with Martin. That he might get to  _ be _ with Martin, in a way he hadn’t thought plausible for him even in the most saccharine daydreams he’d tried to occupy himself with at the Circus. But the problem of him, and Daisy, and her version of him, wasn’t one he could fix so easily.

He wasn’t her Jon. Daisy was letting him close, had extended an open invitation into her home and allowed him to take comfort in her presence because of a friendship based on the actions of another man. Jon hadn’t done that, whatever it had been. He didn’t think he could; whatever the other Jon had done, it sounded dramatic and heroic; _ he _ couldn’t even walk a few blocks without being kidnapped. 

His thoughts started to circle like water in a drain. Every moment he was here was borrowed until Daisy realized who he was and who he _ wasn’t _ , and finally dropped him. Like most nice things n his life, this was temporary; forgetting that would only make the  end worse when it arrived.

_ “ _ Hey,” Daisy whispered into his hair, drawing him out of his thoughts. “You alright?”

He opened his mouth to answer and was mortified to find that his throat had gone tight; he nodded instead. 

She blew out a slow breath. “If you’re sure. If you weren’t, you wouldn’t have to tell me what was the matter. But I’d like to know, especially if I did something. You don’t have to lie to try to keep me happy, Jon.”

The lump in his throat grew; he squeezed his eyes shut. “I’m not him.” Maybe it was better to get it all out in the open. If she made him leave, then he’d basically have no choice but to go back and talk with Martin. One way or another, explaining things would force a solution to at least one  of his problem s .  And lying had cause him more problems than telling the truth ever had.  The rationalization didn’t stop his stomach from sinking like he was sitting across from Mike Crew again.

“Hm?” She drew back slightly, and he didn’t let himself pursue the contact.

“ Jon.  _ Your _ Jon. I’m not him.” He ducked his head; he didn’t think he’d be met with violence, but rejection  might hurt just as much. 

She pulled him back in. “You’re not. And you are. You have different experiences, but not that many.” She snorted. “Just because you’ve had an eventful few years doesn’t mean the others weren’t formative.”

It felt like a good point, and she understood what he meant more instinctively than he’d anticipated, but…  “But… whatever he did, Daisy, I’m not that kind of person.”  _ I’m a coward _ , he tried to transmit psychically, too ashamed to voice it. Some  _ Archivist _ he was.

Another slow exhale; he wondered if it was something she’d been taught in  one of those support groups she’d been attending. “You want to know what it was, that he did? How he saved me?”

_ Yes _ , but it was accompanied by another thought. “Should we be talking about this? Outside of the tunnels?”  _ What if he’s watching,  _ _ are we safe _ .  (He knew that they were never safe.)

Daisy’s chest vibrated with a giggle that wobbled like a seesaw,  near-hysterical . “His days are numbered. You don’t need to worry about it.” Then she added, more seriously, “He was already on thin ice, but his stupid busywork meant I  was gone when you needed me.  Getting rid of him just became my top priority. So. Do you want to know?”

“ _ Yes _ .” It felt like a confession rather than an answer, an admission of how the need for knowledge consumed common sense and reason and left him eternally hungry for more.

She took a deep breath. “Y’know the coffin? The one the deliverymen haul around?” He nodded. “He went in after me and pulled me out.”

Jon’s breath stuttered. “Is that…  _ possible _ ?”  Based on the statements about it, he’d taken the coffin for the kind of thing that didn’t spit you out again. Like Mr. Spider.  He tried to picture undoing the chain, heaving open the lid, walking inside, but his imagination failed, tripping over the certainty that once inside, it would not give up its prey.

“Not conventionally. But he tried anyway, and it worked.” She rubbed a circle on his back. _How_ did it work, how had his other self known it would? “And I was attached to him, after. He saved me and I owed him, and aside from that we’d been through something traumatic together that no one else could understand. We were both alone.” Jon’s jaw ached with the desire to ask where the others had been, Martin and Basira especially, but he held back. 

“That’s not the only reason he was my friend, though. Not by the end.” She pulled back, pushing gently on Jon’s shoulder so he’d sit up and meet her eyes. He looked away, pulling the blanket tighter around him, but she didn’t do anything. “ You’re funny and sarcastic and smart, Jon.  I like hanging out with you. That’s true regardless of the date. I’m  _ glad _ you’re not in a place where you’d do something like that. I’d rather you be safe and happy than exactly the same.  I’m sorry I forgot that wasn’t the case, before. ”  He startled a bit; he hadn’t expected her to reference  his… former residence in her flat, but it was difficult to interpret her apology another way.

It didn’t sound right. People didn’t just _like_ Jon. Georgie and (apparently) Martin were bewildering outliers. He chewed the inside of his cheek. She had said she’d have clung to him just as tightly if she’d been sent back to before they’d ever met, to when they were children, even. Surely that was a sign that she was blinded by bias toward his future (alternate?) self. But she’d said the same of Basira, and as much as he doubted Daisy’s motivations when it came to him, there was little doubt in Jon’s mind that her connection with Basira was entirely genuine. Did that mean she would project the image of the versions she’d lost onto any suitable canvas the past had given her? Or did she mean it, when she said she liked him, even down to the concept of obnoxious childhood self?

He shook his head. “I don’t think I could ever do something like that. Are you  _ sure?”  _

Daisy snorted. “Jonathan Sims, the Archivist.  The one and only.”

“Well apparently that’s not true, is it?”

“He was different,” she continued, brushing Jon’s comment aside, “because things were bad. He wasn’t some mythical hero version of you. He was isolated and horrifically depressed to the point that throwing himself in after me seemed like a good idea.”

“Isolated?”  _ What happened to the others? _ Not that it would be a particular surprise if he’d failed them all as utterly as Sasha.

“I was in the coffin. Basira and Martin were working on other projects. Melanie…” She froze, even the rhythm of the hand on his back she’d maintained throughout their conversation pausing.

“Daisy?”

“Melanie we still ought to deal with. It’ll keep for a bit.” She shook herself. “Anyway. Of the people still in the Archives, most of them weren’t talking to each other, so. Coffin.”

He noted but didn’t question Tim’s absence from her list. He thought he could guess what the answer would be. He wanted to say  the other Jon overreacted , but he could almost see the shape of the plan himself. Basira would have been destroyed by losing Daisy; if no one would care if he was gone anyway, why not try to remedy that? 

Daisy jiggled her arm against his shoulders, shaking him  out of his thoughts. “If you’re thinking about how expendable you are, you’re wrong.”

He huffed. “Not  _ now _ . I can’t speak for my other self, now can I?”

She grinned wickedly, darting in to press a light kiss to his brow before her voice switched from even reassurance to something more teasing and singsong. “Oh, Martin still missed you!” She cackled as Jon tried to hide how furiously he was blushing,  and mercifully dropped the subject . “Wanna order food?”

-

Jon took the deepest breath he could and let it out slowly as he stood in front of the door to Martin’s flat. The golden tones of sunset made the entire scene feel almost surreal. He didn’t know what to do with his hands; he’d considered getting flowers- this was at least partially an apology, after all- but it felt like too much, too presumptuous. He waffled over knocking before deciding to use his key and let himself in. It felt criminally domestic, in the context of the conversation he was hoping to have.

As he swung the door inward, something in the periphery of his vision moved, and he started. Turning his head toward the movement, he realized it was Martin, sitting on the couch that sat almost directly adjacent to the doorframe. Nothing bad. Just Martin. “Um. Hello.” He laughed awkwardly at his own jumpiness, but failed to diffuse the air of tension that had descended.

Martin was more quilt than man, wrapped until only his round face was visible, the shape of him entirely disguised. An empty pint of ice cream sat on the side table opposite. Jon pulled his gaze away from it, back to Martin as he backed the door shut. “ Hello,” he said again, stupidly.

“Hello, Jon.” Martin’s voice was flat, and his eyes didn’t seem to focus. Looking closer, Jon thought they looked a bit red.

“Er. I believe we have some things. To discuss. From earlier?” He shifted from foot to foot. “Can I sit?” He gestured at the couch, as though the question needed explaining.  Martin nodded mechanically.

Jon perched at the edge of the couch; his reception so far wasn’t exactly encouraging. “First of all. I owe you an apology.” He took a deep breath and did his best to meet Martin’s eyes. “I’m truly, deeply sorry for compelling you, Martin. I know my intentions don’t matter as much as my impact, but it’s important to me that you know I never would have done it deliberately. But learning to control this…  _ ability _ is my responsibility, and this morning means I’ve been neglecting it. I intend to do whatever I can to ensure this doesn’t happen again. If you’d like, we can pretend that nothing happened; if it would make you more comfortable, I’ll act as though I have no more knowledge of any… feelings… than I did yesterday.”

Martin shook his head, eyes down. “You don’t have to do that, Jon.  _ I’m  _ sorry for…” his face went through a succession of contortions before he finished his sentence, “ _ feelings. _ You don’t owe me anything, and it won’t interfere with our work, or you continuing to stay here- if you still want to!- and I’m sorry you felt like you needed to reciprocate. I’m an adult, you don’t have to pretend for me.”

Jon’s stomach sunk. “Martin, I…” Why would simply stating his affections be any more convincing to Martin than it had been this morning? “With the Circus, when Daisy showed up to rescue me, at first I thought she was a hallucination.” Martin’s head jerked up, and he was eyeing Jon with alarmed concern, so he tumbled on as quickly as he could. “I thought she was a hallucination, and in that moment, I thought to myself that if I had to hallucinate someone, Daisy was nice, but I would have preferred you.” 

Martin’s mouth popped open in a perfect “o”- surprise, maybe? No, horror. The part of Jon’s brain that could stop and reevaluate was offline; all that was left was to keep speaking. “I mean! It would have been nice to see you one last time. Before I died. More than anyone else, I would have liked to see you.” Martin didn’t move. Jon looked away. “I’m sorry, that was… I shouldn’t have said that. You don’t want to know- I’m sorry.”  He hadn’t considered that a possible outcome of this conversation was him managing to eliminate any feelings Martin had for him entirely through the inappropriate invocation of horrific imagery and his own trauma, but it was looking increasingly likely.

A light touch on his shoulder; Jon whipped around to look Martin in the eyes.  _ Oh. _ He was much closer than he had been a moment ago. Martin rocked back slightly. “You don’t have to apologize, Jon. I’m… I  _ hate _ that that happened to you, and that there was nothing I could do to help, but I’m here now. If you need to talk about it, I’m all ears. You don’t have to worry about upsetting me.” He broke Jon’s gaze, redness rising on his cheeks.

“That’s not the point- I mean that’s not what I meant! I…” He hated this, he was terrible at heartfelt conversations, when had his life started to include so many? Was this the cost of having connections? Because he wasn’t entirely sure he didn’t want some kind of refund, yet. “I am, and have been for I’m not sure how long, a bit in love with you, Martin. A large bit. And if you feel the same way, then I’d like to…” He wasn’t sure. Georgie was his only real relationship, and she’d very much taken the lead for most of it. He’d never been in this position before. 

“Why?” 

Jon jerked back into focus at the question. “What do you mean  _ why? _ ” He felt the burn of compulsion creeping up his tongue, but bit it back before it escaped. “You’re kind, and smarter than I gave you credit for, and generous, even to me. You’re-” it felt like a silly sentiment, but he’d made it this far, “a deeply lovable person, generally.” He could feel himself blushing, and forced himself not to cringe. “ You’re all that, even to me, when I was- was  _ awful _ to you, for months! I still am, sometimes!” 

He clenched his fist hard enough for his nails to bite into his flesh. He’d promised Daisy that he wouldn’t let himself spiral into how unpleasant he was to associate with during this conversation. He knew she wouldn’t ask, but the sense of accountability helped cut off the thoughts better than any promise made only to himself. 

“ I kind of like it when you’re awful.” Martin blushed as Jon goggled at him, reviewing his words for any accidental compulsion and finding none. “I mean- not when you’re genuinely  _ cruel _ , but I don’t  _ mind _ when you’re just snappy. You get sarcastic, and it’s really funny sometimes. The things you say, I mean. And it usually just means you care, you care about a lot of things but sometimes that’s the only way you show it. And I like, um,” Jon felt sure Martin was discovering a new range to human blushing, and couldn’t quite believe it was because of  _ him, _ “I like taking care of you, bringing you tea and things.  After Prentiss, even when you’re in a really bad mood, you always thank me. You always look like it’s a surprise I thought of you.” Martin cleared his throat, putting a hand over his mouth.

Jon  gently, cautiously, lifted his own hand, carefully grabbing Martin’s by the wrist and pulling it away from the other man’s mouth, toward himself. He had no idea if this was what he should do, but some part of it  _ felt _ right, as he maintained eye contact as he drew Martin’s hand up and pressed a kiss to his knuckles. Martin could almost definitely feel how his own hands were trembling.

Martin stared at the spot where Jon’s lips had touched before setting their still-joined hands in his lap and slowly, slowly (Martin was  _ safe _ he would let Jon move away but he didn’t want to), reaching around Jon to set a hand at the back of his neck and lean in for a proper kiss.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Come find me on tumblr @inklingofadream! That's where I ramble about process, take prompts, chat about plotbunnies and possible upcoming fics, and sometimes post in-progress excerpts! Right now I'm gonna be working through a bunch of prompts for a bit, but head over there if you're interested in updates about my other Daisy time travel AU _Till Things Are Brighter_ or wanna egg me on into writing one of my other time travel Daisy kidnaps Jon concepts (I have. [A whole tag](https://inklingofadream.tumblr.com/tagged/daisy-kidnapping-jon-agenda) for them.
> 
> With this work complete, I will be marking the series complete as well, but if you like this verse subscribe/stay subscribed to the series! The main linear story is done, but I have ideas for other lil side stories, mostly other characters POV on events. First up will likely be Jonah's absolute breakdown over how he Does Not get what is HAPPENING to his best laid plans how does Daisy KNOW this stuff?! What is she doing!
> 
> Once again, thank y'all so much for all the comments and support 🥰 love ya!


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